


'Cause it's All the Same to Me

by JustLikeAPapercut



Category: Succession (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Bad language abounds, F/M, Neighbors, alternative universe, slightly dented people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:53:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 89,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26185987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustLikeAPapercut/pseuds/JustLikeAPapercut
Summary: He’s never lived in a place that shares a floor with neighbors, always had a fucking penthouse, but this place shares a small hallway with two other units and the idea of that is so nauseating and claustrophobic that he has to smother it all under five hours of drinking before he can bring himself to sign the papers...
Relationships: Gerri Kellman/Roman "Romulus" Roy, Roman "Romulus" Roy/Tabitha
Comments: 374
Kudos: 157





	1. Chapter 1

* * *

_I won't run_   
_when the sky turns to flame_   
_and I sure won't budge_   
_when the earth does shake_   
_when the flood comes up_   
_I will dance in the rain_   
_'cause it's all the same to me_

\- Anya Marina, “All the Same to Me”

* * *

He’s in the middle of looking for a new apartment when the rocket explosion happens. 

No one dies, it’s just a couple of thumbs, but the apology tour in Japan actually makes it worse. Baird gives him some really fucking horrible advice about how to talk to the press and just like that, he’s no longer employed by the family business; cut loose, cut off, nothing to do with himself but listen to his money manager talk to him about his trust and how his lifestyle will have to change if he doesn’t find additional revenue streams.

It occurs to him that this must be what Connor’s life is like, day in, day out, and he’s impressed now that his half brother hasn’t already eaten a fucking gun. 

He lets Tabitha pick out the new apartment. He’s never lived in a place that shares a floor with neighbors, always had a fucking penthouse, but this place shares a small hallway with two other units and the idea of that is so nauseating and claustrophobic that he has to smother it all under five hours of drinking before he can bring himself to sign the papers, his broker watching as he sloppily scrawls his signature over and over again. 

It’s in an exclusive enough building, floor to ceiling windows, and he knows Tabs was trying to keep him under a certain budget (he actually _has_ a fucking budget now) but he doesn’t feel grateful, only angry and restless, and he fights with her daily for about a week. He tries to make it up to her when it occurs to him that she, too, could leave and then he’d have nothing then. Just an empty discount apartment and parents who won’t talk to him, his friends dropping off when they realized he can no longer throw thirty million at their new startup, write it off as a loss. 

He goes to a therapist. Even goes to a sex therapist, just to make sure Tabitha won’t up and leave him. And it works, kind of. He can at least go through the motions now, like a normal human meat bag, even though a lot of the things involved in sex still make his skin itch. 

Spring rain turns into summer heat, at some point people start buying up pumpkins like autumn has never fucking happened before, Tabitha draping herself in oversized sweaters that he doesn’t entirely hate. He gets a few odd jobs, sitting on boards where he never has to show up and they’ll throw him chunks of cash.

He and Tabitha are out doing Christmas shopping when he decides that he should probably propose, like some kind of insurance policy, maybe do it on New Year’s. He wonders if any of his siblings will even show up to his wedding. He thinks Kendall probably would and Shiv might, if she thought it was bound to be a fucking disaster, could gloat about his shitty ceremony over bone-dry chicken.

They’re on the way back up to the apartment, both of them tipsy from the drinks they slammed down between shops, when they get stuck in the elevator with their neighbor. He thinks it’s their neighbor anyway, he never really pays attention, only hears Tabitha talking with someone occasionally in the hall on weekend mornings, the bullshit small talk floating in through the propped door to where Roman’s spread out on the couch, trying to pour coffee down his throat without spilling it on his body, always burning the shit out of himself anyway. 

“Well, hello,” Tabitha says, and the woman gives Tabs the most perfunctory please-fuck-off smile that Roman’s ever seen. He smirks, leaning against the side of the elevator. 

She’s middle aged, blond. Kind of milfy, maybe, but in a plays-a-lawyer-on-TV way that doesn’t really float Roman’s dick. There’s a younger woman with her, maybe a daughter or sister or some shit, and she’s kind of hot, like a shorter, more compact version of Tabs. 

“Ready for the holidays?” the younger one asks them, Tabitha’s arms laden down with shopping bags that Roman has no interest in helping her haul. 

He’s always hated stupid questions like that. No, of course he’s not ready, no one is ever fully ready for the emotional equivalent of getting fucked in the ass with no lube, but smiling idiots keep walking around for months, wishing each other well and asking that same insane question, and what? He’s just supposed to jerk them off, parrot it back?

“Just gotta buy the sprig of mistletoe to shove up my ass,” Roman says, fucking around on his phone, and when he looks up Tabs is glaring, the older woman looking at him over her glasses like he’s the most disinteresting thing she’s ever seen. 

He shuffles out of the elevator, weirdly discomforted by that chick's expression. He barely has his foot in the door before Tabitha's berating him. 

“Can you not do that?” she says, slamming a bag down on the kitchen counter. “Maybe just once not act like an asshole in front of people who are only trying to be nice?” He ignores her, going to pour himself some booze, will maybe turn his buzz into something better, more numbing, because this isn’t a fight they’ve had before. “I know you get your rocks off on being hated but I don’t.” 

“That lady is a frigid bitch,” Roman shrugs. “And the chick with her was a fucking idiot.” 

“Those were the first words you’ve even spoken to her,” Tabitha sighs. Pulls her hair down from where she’s had it pinned back, shaking it out. “Literally the first words you’ve deigned to speak in our neighbor’s direction, and it was to insult her daughter, who just flew in from California.” 

“Oh, so she’s a fucking idiot who has bad taste in real estate and is probably a vegan.” He gulps down his drink. “Why do you even care what they think?”

“Because it’s what you do!” Tabitha says, flailing one arm in the air. “This isn’t some dorm room we’re living in. We’ll be running into the same neighbors over and over again until someone dies or sells.” 

“We can always sell if-” 

“That’s not a solution,” she cuts him off. “Look, I can get over the weird sex and the intimacy issues, and all the family stuff that you never want to talk about even though it’s always in the papers. But I don’t want to have to pick up and move, literally or figuratively, because you’re so shitty to people that we can’t make it through two minutes of elevator conversation.” 

“I’m sorry,” he says, because he is. Maybe not about the stupid joke or being bad at small talk, but about the fact that he’s made her upset. He cares about her, trusts her, and there hasn’t been a lot of that in his life. Maybe love doesn’t feel the same way for him that it does for other people - he gets the sense that what he feels is more muted, thinner, than the way other people feel love, the way Kendall always talked about Rava. But he does care, he really does, and he’s not trying to blow this up. 

He doesn’t know how to be alone. 

“Are you?” Tabitha asks. “Or are you just saying that?” 

“I am,” he promises. “I’ll do better. I will.” He sets his drink down, coming over to where she’s standing in the kitchen. “You want me to go across the hall? Apologize to that old bat?” 

“No,” she says, laughing a little now. “No no. Maybe just… try not to act like a douche canoe, the next time we see her, alright?” 

“That seems fair,” Roman says. And because he thinks it’s what he’s supposed to do here, he kisses her.

Two weeks later she has to fly out for a meeting, Roman in the apartment alone when there’s a knock at the door. 

“Sign here,” a courier tells him, and Roman scrawls his name across the digital pad. Takes hold of the package with a legal seal across it, a lump in his throat because he assumes it’s something about his family. A nice yuletide slap in the fucking face, courtesy of Logan Roy. 

He wishes Tabitha were here, that he wasn’t alone, holding whatever fucking bomb he’s just signed for, and it’s tempting to put it off until she gets back, but he thinks maybe he’ll just get it over with now. It’s ten o’clock at night, early enough for him to take the emotional hit and then go out and get trashed, come home so messed up that he doesn’t remember anything tomorrow, not even where he was or how he got home. 

He’s confused as shit when he opens it up to find some boring legal documents about a woman who was apparently groped while working at some lame accounting firm. He’s never even heard of the place, it wasn’t him, and anyway all of his own sexual harassment stuff is verbal, so if this has something to do with Waystar, he has know idea why he’s being looped in. 

It isn’t until thirty minutes later, when he goes to throw out the folder, that he sees the _G. Kellman_ scrolled across the top, along with an apartment number that isn’t his. 

Fucking useless prick of a courier, scaring the shit out of him for nothing. 

He wants to just toss it all out, act like the mix up never happened, but then he remembers that he signed his name for the delivery and he really doesn’t want that neighbor lady, G. Kellman apparently, coming over here, Tabitha getting pissed off at him later because he couldn’t be bothered to walk ten feet across the hall. 

“Fuck me,” he sighs. Grabs up the papers and plods across the hall in his bare feet because shoes feel like too much energy to expend when he’s already forcing himself to act like an adult for two minutes. 

He means to just leave the papers on her doorstep, knock loudly and get the hell out of dodge, but apparently she was hovering by the fucking door or something because it whips open before he’s even had a chance to drop the papers on the ground. 

“Can I help you?” she says. Sounds waspish and cold, her hair curling around her face, her face flushed, like she’s just gotten out of the shower or something. Her hair was straight before, when he saw her in the elevator. He’s pretty sure anyway. 

“Your idiot messenger dropped these off at my place by mistake,” he says, handing her the envelope. 

“And you opened it anyway?” she frowns, tilting it on its side, a jagged tear across the tan envelope. “These are confidential documents.” 

“I didn’t see that it wasn’t to me,” he defends, squirming here. He thought maybe she’d take them and slam the door in his face, didn’t consider the possibility she’d be mad about him having gone through her shit. Which makes him a fucking shortsighted chump, obviously, and he regrets not throwing the papers in the garbage now. 

“Is this everything at least?” she demands, leafing through papers. “Did you go through it, read it?” 

“Only the first page,” Roman says, which is a lie. “But I have a horrible memory, even my father calls me a useless twit, and I’ll make sure to get good and drunk tonight, forget everything by morning. Scout’s honor.” 

“As if that isn’t the entirety of your weekly calendar already,” she says dryly, and something about that makes him laugh. 

“Righty oh,” he says, when he finds himself lingering, her annoyance palpable. “Hope you can help that woman. Horrible what happened to her.” 

“How do you know I’m not one of the people tasked with burying her?” she says, considering him now. 

He doesn’t, not really. Plenty of female lawyers at Waystar, dutifully digging ditches for bodies, quietly drafting NDA’s. 

“I guess you don’t strike me as the kind,” he shrugs, going back across the hall, to his own door. “I’m Roman, by the way.” 

“I’m well aware of who you are,” she says, sounding a tad sour here before her tone levels off. “Patron saint of explosions and PR fuck ups.” 

“That’s me,” he says, opening his door. Nothing he hasn’t heard before, nothing he won’t hear a million times again, mostly from his own family.

“I’m sorry your father’s lawyer hung you out to dry like that,” she adds, and when he turns around she’s staring at him, glasses low on her nose. “Was an unconscionable breach of ethics.” 

She closes the door with an efficient flick of her hand. 

. . .

It never occurred to Roman that Baird’s bad advice wasn’t just incompetence, didn’t occur to his fucking ten-watt brain that Waystar’s head counsel wasn’t just as bad at his job as Roman was at his own. 

Of course it was deliberate. Of course his dad set him up to fail spectacularly, out in front of all those cameras, Baird pouring him sake at dinner and telling all those bullshit stories about the first few summers in the Hamptons, when all along his orders were to make sure Roman fell on his face publicly, a loose end to be neatly tied off.

He knows he didn’t need a lot of help in the failure department, he’s not so shortsighted as to think he was fucking credit to the family company, but the betrayal of it stings and when he showers later that night he thinks about how many people must have known beforehand. Frank certainly, and fuck him very much for his fake bullshit mentor facade. Roman never bought it, never trusted or liked him, and he should feel vindicated here but he doesn’t. He feels weak and small, and all alone because he knows it was his father’s idea, knows none of the executive suite is suicidal enough to suggest one of the Roy children for sacrifice out of thin fucking air. 

Maybe it would have made a difference if Kendall wasn’t on the outs with their dad, someone in the room to defend him. Then again, it’s looking less and less like Kendall’s still out in the cold these days, so maybe that spineless cumdump knew all along and those ‘checking in on you’ texts Roman's mostly ignored were a smokescreen, the kind of hollow gesture Roman himself makes when he decides it’s too difficult to have everyone hate him on sight. 

He drinks two bottles of wine, watches some boring as fuck documentary on the migration of birds or something and, judging by the texts he has piled up when he wakes up, tired and hungover the next day, he sent some long, angry rant to Kendall and asked Tabitha to marry him. He had a whole plan in his head, asking her on New Year’s day in the public library because for whatever reason that’s her favorite building on the planet and he’s already found and bribed a guy who can sneak them in while it’s closed. But that’s all blown to shit now, she isn’t even answering his calls, and the more he thinks about it, the madder he gets at that snide bitch who lives across the hall. 

That woman doesn’t know shit about him and she knows fuck all about his family, and the next time he sees her, he’s going to tell her to fuck all the way off. 

Tabitha comes home from her trip two days later than she planned, no explanation for the absence, and he could ask, but he’s not sure he wants to know. She’s quiet mostly, moving around the apartment like he’s a souffle that might collapse if she shuts a door too loudly, and he wonders if this is what anger is like for some people; maybe not everyone feels the urge to hit someone or shout the way his dad does, numb themselves out like him and Kendall. 

She’s getting out of the shower, a towel around her, when Roman slithers his way into the bathroom, the ring in his hand. 

“I’m an idiot,” he shrugs, feeling helpless. “But I really like being your idiot.” 

She looks apprehensive when she takes the ring, but she doesn’t say no, so he kisses her. 

It’s easy enough to pull her towel away, touch her in the way she likes. He’s convinced plenty of people of plenty things like this, men and women alike. It’s always easier than talking, more accessible to him than finding words that will only make him sound more fucking insane. 

He isn’t sure he’ll be able to climax once he’s inside her, so his mind starts to wander, searching for a distraction. And for some reason he thinks about that woman who lives across the hall, the way she looked down her glasses and was able to broadcast her annoyance in the span of only a few sentences, calling him a fuck up. 

He remembers the way she pronounced the word ‘unconscionable’, her tongue wrapping around each syllable, and a second later he’s coming with a grunt, Tabitha saying his name. 

. . . 


	2. Chapter 2

It takes Tabitha two weeks to wear the ring outside of their apartment, and Roman knows he should probably talk to his therapist about what that means, the scratch of anxiety that’s forever rustling in his chest now, but he just tries to bury it under meetings with tech start-ups and dinners out at restaurants that have a four-month wait for reservations if you’re name isn’t Roy. 

“Are we still going to see your parents next month?” he asks Tabitha, after he’s ordered a bottle of wine. Her sister is getting married in a few months (or is it her brother?) and there’s some family firing squad in Connecticut, like a boring shower or whatever. He assumes there will be booze, at least. 

“Mmm you’ll hate that,” she says, looking down at the menu. “I can just go without you, I don’t mind.” 

“No,” he perks up here. “I’ll go, it’s fine. Already cleared the old calendar. We should probably tell your parents that I’m making an honest kidnap victim out of you.”

“They’ll think it’s rude if we upstage Thérèse,” Tabitha says, and Roman can’t remember if that’s her sister or the chick her brother is marrying. He’s pretty sure she has two sisters and one brother, but he can’t remember now, has only met one of them and promptly lost interest when he confirmed that he’d snagged the hot one. 

“I mean, I don’t have to climb on a table and sing it,” Roman says, pushing his menu away. He always gets the same two things, he only opened the menu up in the first place to have something to do with his hands. “I’ll save that show for their wedding.” 

Tabitha shifts uncomfortably here and Roman clocks it. He’s an idiot, but not that kind of idiot, and he starts looking around for the waiter, hoping that freakishly tall dude will just get here already with their bottle of wine and maybe some fucking bread. 

“I think we should wait to tell people,” Tabitha says, and immediately pauses, sipping her water while Roman stares at her in confusion. “You asked me the first time when you were drunk and upset -”

“I’d already planned to ask you. I already had the ring.”

“But you do this with things,” she says. “You buy Jimmy Hendrix’s guitar at an auction and never learn to play it. You buy into a tech company, then want out the next day.” 

“The guy was a dickless weasel,” Roman argues, but his hands feel sweaty now. He feels trapped, no longer wants to be in a crowded restaurant, seated at a central table in view of everyone. 

“Okay,” she sighs, “but there are a dozen other examples and I just. . . Roman, I don’t want to be the next guitar you buy and then shove in a closet.” 

“I think I’ve been playing you pretty well lately,” he smirks, falls back on bluffing his way through with bravado. “I bet our neighbors would agree, given how fucking loud you get.” The neighbor around the corner is like a hundred and seventy, and Roman doubts that geezer can hear anything. The uptight lady across the hall probably wouldn’t remember what sex even sounds like and anyway, he doesn’t really want to think about her right now, while his fiancé is publicly castrating him with a butterknife. 

“I guess,” Tabitha says. “But sometimes it’s like having sex with a robot, dude. Like where do you even go mentally? Because I’m pretty sure you’re not in the room.” 

The waiter turns up with their wine, fucking finally, and Roman immediately asks for the check, is pulling bills out of his wallet before he even comes back with it, Tabitha crossing her arms now. 

“Seriously?” she says. 

“Look, I’m not going to stay here and listen to this bullshit,” Roman says, and fuck, he wants to cry, but he won’t. He never cries, stopped years ago, after he was thirteen and his dad hit him right across the face for crying over his dead dog. “I’m literally seeing two different therapists, just so I can measure up for you. Like, I am getting _both_ of my fucking heads shrunk, and you still think I’m going to duck out on you next week.” 

“Please don’t leave like this,” she pleads, when he stands up from the table. 

“I’m sure you’ll have no trouble finding a dinner companion,” he says. “Maybe call whoever the fuck it was you spent those extra two days with, when you were allegedly in LA.” 

They used a car service, but Roman bypasses the driver, opting to walk. Only it’s fucking cold, he’s not wearing a real jacket, and he doesn’t even know how to get home from here. He just walks and walks until the tingling in his hands gives way to total numbness, and at some point after that he grabs a cab. 

He texts Kendall on the way to a bar, and a minute later his brother’s calling him. 

“You good?” Ken asks immediately, and Roman can hear the sound of voices, maybe a keyboard. 

He’s probably in the office. With their dad. Because Roman got fired and Ken has a million fucking free passes. 

The image of Ken at work sends him into a rage, ending the call before he’s even spoken a word. 

Kendall calls him three times after that. Sends him twelve different text messages, obviously freaking out, and when Roman’s been at the bar for twenty minutes, two drinks under his belt, he texts his brother the name of the place. 

Kendall shows up thirty minutes later, is wearing a suit Roman thinks is new. But they’ve only seen each other once in the last eight months, Roman not even bothering to show up at Christmas, so what does he know about his brother’s life anymore. 

“What the fuck man,” Kendall says, fast walking toward him. “Are you alright?” 

“The suit looks like shit on you,” Roman tells him. “Like your coke dealer and Wambsgans had a sartorial baby, and that suit is the afterbirth.” 

“You scared the shit out of me,” Kendall says, ignoring the jab. “I thought I was gonna find you on a fucking ledge somewhere.” 

“You’re not that lucky,” Roman tells him, and motions to the bartender for another drink. 

“I wanted you dead plenty of times, you piece of shit, but not like that and not in the last year.” 

Roman doesn’t know what to say to that, so he just nurses his drink and looks around, kicking one of his legs against the bar. He’s not really looking to get drunk and he definitely has no interest in bringing out the shitshow that is a drunken Kendall. He’s only killing time, doesn’t know what else to do with himself since he doesn’t want to go home. 

“I really didn’t know about Japan,” Kendall says after a while, when they’ve been talking about nothing. “Not until afterward, when it was spinning out and the Board was making noise.” 

“Oh yeah?” Roman says, lips around a beer. “You gonna give me the boy scout salute here?”

“Bro, look at me,” Kendall says, and Roman rolls his eyes but does so. Takes Ken in for the first time tonight, noticing now that he really does look like shit, the skin under his eyes bruised purple and his skin weird and waxy. “I really didn’t know. I swear to you.” 

“Are you doing keds again?” Roman asks, frowning here. “Because if you are, I’m going to find your dealer and have his legs broken. That shit is the worst and you’re a dumbfuck to even pick it up again.” 

“It’s not keds,” Kendall shakes his head, but he gets weird and squirrelly here, puts more space between them. 

“Oh, well that’s fucking convincing,” Roman scoffs. Makes a mental note to text three different people and kindly remind them that if they’re supplying his brother, he’ll fuck them over. Stupid pieces of shit. “Do yourself a favor and stick to coke if you’re going to do anything. At least that stuff just makes you talk too much, wanking your dick about how you have a passion for cinematography.”

“Oh, you want to talk about some fucking Jafa now?” Kendall says, halfway smiling here. “Want my oral essay on _Daughters of the Dust_? Maybe chat about _Seven Songs for Malcolm X_?” 

“Nobody wants your fucking oral, dude. Jesus Christ.” But they’re both sniggering now, and after that they order a mountain of greasy bar food to demolish between them. 

“This was fun,” Kendall says, when they’re walking out. Like it’s some lame ass first date or something. “Maybe pick up your fucking phone when I text you now, okay?’ 

“And what?” Roman shrugs. “I’ll set up a poker night? Loop dear old dad in?” 

“Fuck dad,” Kendall says, and with such gravity that Roman laughs, unsure how to respond to that. “Dad’s a prick. Fuck him.” 

“Whatever you say, golden boy.” 

The joke falls flat, Kendall only looking at him sadly, and Roman hates that this is how it always ends. Bitter or sad or someone’s face getting ground in the fucking dirt. 

“You want a ride?” Kendall asks him, when his car service pulls up. Roman does, if only to rewind the last five minutes, maybe fix it, but he doesn’t know how and he knows himself, knows that he’ll just dig a deeper hole if gets in that SUV, stuck in traffic with his brother. 

“Nah,” Roman shakes his head. “Thanks anyway.” 

It’s snowing when he gets to his apartment building, fat flakes sticking to his sport jacket, only to melt in the lobby, a wet chill clinging to him. He pushes the button for the elevator, sees in the bright light that his hands are red and cracked from the cold. He never even noticed in the bar. 

The elevator doors are just about to close when his neighbor, that Kellman woman, slides in at the last moment, Roman hitting the door open button before he sees who it is. 

“Thanks,” she says, but he can tell that she has to smooth out her chagrin at seeing him. 

“Sure,” he says. Sags into the corner and closes his eyes, tries to pretend he’s all alone. 

He’s masturbated to the thought of her at least once week, but that doesn’t mean he wants to share a small space with her, have to fucking talk to her, and he doesn’t like learning that her perfume smells like a particular corner of his mother’s garden. He has no idea what the flowers even are, only that he and Shiv used to slip out there with a bottle they’d pinched from the bar, standing in that particular spot and mocking dinner party guests under the cover of dark.

The elevator ride is mercifully silent and she’s quick to slide out first, two strides ahead of him down the hall. It’s a good move, he respects it, but it’s cucked up when she drops her keys in the hall, Roman on top of them before he realizes what’s going on. 

They’re right by his foot and he guesses he could just keep walking, but it feels needlessly rude, a cunt thing to do, so he picks them up and hands them to her, his index finger grazing her palm in the exchange. 

“Thank you,” she says, an odd expression on her face, like she’s running a calculation. 

“Be careful,” he warns, walking around her now, “that’s the second time you’ve said that to me. I might start to think you no longer loathe the sight of my face.” 

“Come now,” she says, as he reaches his door. “You aren’t nearly important enough for me to hate.” 

He laughs at that. A kindness she’s handed him for free. 

. . . 

Everything goes to shit in Connecticut. He does well the first day, manages to pipe down and behave himself, but at lunch the second day Tabitha’s dad is being a dick - passive aggressive, waspy bullshit - and he tells everyone that they’re engaged. 

“How many grand kids you want?” Roman asks Tabs' mother, popping a carrot in his mouth. “Five? Thirty-five?” Tabitha isn’t in the room, but she comes back in a few minutes later, her parents making uncomfortable sounds and her sister looking like she wants to punch him in the face. “Show them the ring, babe,” he says. Knows what he’s doing, how she’ll react, and Tabitha only exhales loudly here, closing her eyes. 

He goes home by himself that afternoon, even takes the train to stretch it out because he’s at a loss for what to do when he gets back. He thinks about texting Kendall, maybe dragging him out for drinks again, but he doesn’t want that. Doesn’t want to answer any questions about Tabitha and how he blew things up, a rocket on a launch pad.

For a few days there are endless parties that he doesn’t have interest in, coked out people talking to him about stupid shit at clubs and restaurants, various rooftops downtown. Tabitha apparently moves out all her stuff while he’s out, he comes home to find her art and clothes gone, her engagement ring left on the counter, and he doesn’t know how to process this. He doesn’t want to look around the apartment and see what it isn’t there, is terrified now that that’s all he’ll ever see, so he invites a few dozen people over as a distraction. 

The music is loud and the company is shitty. He was drunk earlier but he’s sober now and he thinks bringing everyone here was a mistake. There’s laughter everywhere, people leaning over each other’s phones, but he feels outside it, maybe a little panicked by it, and after half an hour he disappears into the master bath, lying down on the tile floor. 

He isn’t sure how long he’s been in there when someone knocks on the door. “Use the two others, you idiot,” he calls. Doesn’t open his eyes or get up. “For fuck’s sake.”

The knock gets louder and angrier, Roman content to just ignore it, but then he hears the knob turn because apparently he didn’t take the time to lock it.

“Of all the…” he hears a woman say, and then a heavy sigh. “Are you alive down there? OD’ing?”

When he opens his eyes, the Kellman woman is standing over him in blue silk pajamas, a grimace on her face. 

“I don’t actually do drugs,” he informs her, closing his eyes again. 

“One would hope you’d learn that particular lesson from your brother,” she says acidly. “Though being too drunk to function isn’t much better. The police are on their way.”

“I’m not drunk either,” he defends, though he doesn’t know why. It doesn’t matter what some rando neighbor thinks. “Just having a little panic episode.” He rewinds what she said, sitting up now. “You called the police? Jesus, what a fucking fascist.”

“Someone downstairs called the police,” she explains, leaning against the counter. “I came over to appeal to your better nature.” 

He lifts his eyebrows at this. “You mean threaten me.”

“Yes,” she says. “Now stop acting like a child and go out there. Send those cretins home so I can go to sleep without having to give a witness statement.”

“There are some very fine people out there,” he says, standing up, his ankle popping loudly. Fuck, that didn’t use to happen. Joints are such bullshit. 

She doesn’t say anything to that, only gives him an eat-shit glare, gesturing toward the door.

He sends everyone home, clapping his hands and making rude remarks. The place is almost empty when he looks at the counter, sees that Tabitha’s ring is gone, stolen by someone, and he leans against the wall here. 

He goes back to the bathroom after that, lying down once more on the tile, the bathroom door open and beyond that, the bedroom door too. He can hear the din of voices in the hallway, people waiting for the elevator, and he wonders if his front door’s open as well.

He doesn’t care. Doesn’t care at all.

. . . 

Kendall sends him a text about a tech company that needs another backer, some kind of ride sharing bullshit out of San Francisco, and it’s tempting for Roman to blow it off, tell his brother to shove his advice, but he knows he’s going to need to to find something to fill his days. He can’t keep doing what he’s been doing. He'll end up dead. 

_Maybe it’s nothing_ , Kendall texts him a few hours later. _You have a better nose for that shit than I do._

It’s an obvious statement because yes, no fucking shit, but he also can’t remember the last time he and Ken said something like that to each other, a compliment that wasn’t couched in a seven-layer dip of competition and mindfuck. He puts it in his notes, so he can remember to bring it up in therapy, and the absurdity of that makes him laugh out loud, alone in his living room. 

“I have become a lame, dickless normo,” he announces to no one, snickering a bit still. “For Christ’s sake.” 

The meeting in San Francisco isn’t bad, they’re obviously very ready to suck Roman’s dick, but he tells them he wants a week to think about it. He hops on a plane after that, headed to Hong Kong for another meeting about another thing, drags back to New York five days later, mentally exhausted but also kind of pumped. He hasn’t done this much work since he was back at Waystar, Frank breathing over his fucking shoulder. 

He lands in New York at six in the morning on a Saturday, has a breakfast delivery from his favorite place set up. He wants to eat his way through a stack of bacon and waffles, then sleep for a week. 

There’s courier hovering downstairs when Roman takes his food from his doorman and because Roman is full of piss and vim today, he leans over the guy, looking at the name on the envelope. Sees the _G. Kellman_ in bold print. 

“Whatdaya know, that’s me too,” he says, and signs for the envelope. The courier looks about to say something, maybe ask for some fucking ID or something, then stops when Roman hands him a folded up fifty. 

He hums in the elevator, the smell of maple syrup filling the space, and he wonders now if he should get a dog. Something to make him come home at night, have to get up in the mornings to walk. Normal people do that, right? Have dogs, go to work, make dinner. He could do that. He thinks he could, anyway. 

He’s getting out of the elevator, a little pep in his step, when he sees a man coming out of the Kellman lady’s door, a saunter to his walk. 

“Good morning to you,” the man says to Roman, and he looks about a decade younger than his dad, salt and pepper hair, slightly rounded middle. 

“And to you,” Roman says, snickering here. He watches the old dude get in the elevator, doors bumping closed, before he goes to her door, knocking out a beat with his fist. 

That dirty little minx. 

“Hello,” she sighs, when she opens the door to see him standing there. She’s wearing jeans and a beige cashmere sweater, her hair down and blown out straight, and he watches with a smirk as she pokes her head out a little, glancing sideways down the hall. 

“Oh, you’re date’s already taken his leave,” Roman says. “Nice guy. Told me good morning and everything, like something out of the goddamn Brady Bunch.” 

“Fuck off,” she says, which amuses him to no end. A horrible mistake for her to make, giving him any kind of reaction, he’ll definitely lean into it. “Is there a reason you’re here, haunting my doorstep?”

“This came for you,” he says, and hands her the envelope he pinched. She’s always having things messengered over, he sees the couriers lurking in the hall sometimes, and he wonders why she doesn’t have things scanned and sent to her over email, but then some people are just old school like that. 

She mutters a curse here about the incompetence of the messenger service, but he never lied, she just assumed, and he’s happy to go with that. 

“Thank you, I suppose,” she says. And he smiles, shrugs, not sure what else to say to stretch this interaction out, doesn’t know why he evens wants to. “Has she been out of town?” she asks suddenly. “Tabitha? That is her name, right?” 

He feels his face fall, his shoulders coming up, figuratively folding in on himself. 

“Oh,” she says, before he can come up with a shitty response. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize. I guess I’ll have to suffer without her holding me hostage with inane small talk now.” 

Maybe it's meant to cheer him up, this bitchy comment, but he actually misses the sound of Tabitha’s voice drifting in, whether it was small talk or her chatting on the phone, one of her many exes calling her to complain about whoever they’re dating, Tabitha always listening and doling out advice. 

“Not all of us can be so lucky as to land a middle aged man with a beer belly and cardboard for personality,” he says here, and it’s just so needlessly shitty, he can clearly see Tabitha grimacing at him, that time in the elevator. “Fuck, sorry,” he says, bravado gone. “That’s really none of my business.” 

She sizes him up here, and he realizes now that she’s not wearing glasses, her face more open, softer looking. Was she wearing glasses when she came over to break up that party a few weeks ago? He thinks so but he can’t remember, can only picture the way her hair was pinned back, like she was ready for bed but had to come over and deal with him. 

“No,” she says. “You’re right. He was boring as fuck. . . a boring fuck.” 

He laughs at that. She’s surprised him. People so rarely surprise him in a good way, he feels like she’s given him a gift, a trinket wrapped up in a silver bow. 

“Have you eaten breakfast yet?” he blurts out, and her eyes eyebrows shoot up here. “I’d just touched down at the airport when I ordered the entire menu at Buvette.” He holds up the to-go boxes here, clumsily swings the bag around like an idiot. 

What the fuck is wrong with him? 

“Do you have Belgian waffles in there?” she asks him, and he beams, feeling like someone who’s escaped from an asylum, Connor’s batshit crazy mother. 

“Two orders,” he says. Waggles his eyebrows at her, walking backward, toward his own door.

“Fine,” she says. “But if this the beginning of some elaborate murder plot, you should know that people will coming looking for me.” 

He needs coffee more than he needs food now, so the first thing he does it’s set to work on the automatic machine. Tabitha always used a French press, used to say the coffee tasted better that way, but Roman doesn’t have that kind of patience, and anyway he doesn’t think he could manage it, feels self-conscious about every movement now, this woman staring at him in his own kitchen. 

“Do you often invite strangers over for meals?” she asks him, as he pulls out plates, two sets of silverware. 

“You aren’t a stranger, Gerri Kellman, senior partner of Kellman, Young, & Taft. Patron saint of the harassed and abused.” He looked her up a month ago, out of boredom and curiosity, but he still thinks of her as that Kellman woman, the neighbor lady, even though he knows her first name. 

“Is creeping women out a part of your charm?” she asks, taking the plate he hands her. But she doesn’t seem creeped out or upset and he thinks here that she’s probably testing him, prodding him a little. 

“I was curious after that first time,” he admits, “when you asked me how I knew that you weren’t the lawyer charged with burying that one woman, ruining her life.” 

“It isn’t all saintliness and virtue,” she admits after a minute. She’s opened the container of fresh fruit, smelling it before she dishes a small pile on her plate. “It’s a business. I only take the cases that’’ll pan out, make money.” 

“You mean money makes the world go ‘round?” he asks, feigning shock here. “Gee, as the most feckless member of an evil dynasty, I never would have guessed.” 

“I think you have some competition for the most feckless,” she says, both of them sitting down at the table, to-go containers spread out between them. “Seeing as how your brother can’t keep clean and anyone who’s ever been at a cocktail party with your sister knows she’s insufferable, and I lost mmm, maybe fifty IQ points last week, when I caught the last ten seconds of your other brother’s campaign ad.” 

“The first pancake,” he nods sagely. “They never turn out well.” 

“I’ll make sure to write that in a Christmas card to my oldest daughter,” she drawls, and he laughs here, utterly delighted. 

“Was that the one I insulted in the elevator?” he asks, feeling a little embarrassed about that, shovels some bacon in his mouth. 

“No, that was the younger one,” she says. She grimaces as the way he’s eating, but too bad. He’s fucking starving. “And I don’t mind telling you that if you come near either of them, I’ll cut your dick off.” 

“Nice,” he says, after he manages to swallow. “That’s very nice.”

“I’ve seen your type,” she warns him. 

“I’ll have you know that the last one left because I asked her to marry me ,” he says here, wiping his mouth. And it’s not true, not really, but it doesn’t feel false. People always leave once they get to know him well enough, he’ll always manage to push them away, freak them out. 

“I’m sorry,” she says, pulling up short here, but he doesn’t want her pity, the thought of it makes his skin itch, and he hops up now, going to get the coffee that’s finished brewing. 

“Cream or sugar?” he asks and she shakes her head, so he pours two cups straight away, can feel her eyes on him the whole time. 

“I actually interviewed to work for Waystar Royco once,” she says, apropos of nothing, when he hands her the coffee cup. “A million years ago. You would have been a kid then, stilling pissing the bed.” 

“You assume I ever stopped,” he says, flopping down in his chair, and she smiles at him here, clearly amused. “What happened, my family’s satanic circus not hire you?’ 

“I don’t know,” she says, holding her coffee cup now with both hands. “I never answered their calls after I went in.” 

“I see, you were too good for us,” he needles her, pushing the container of waffles in her direction because her plate is empty. 

“My interview went well, I think, but the head legal counsel, Ben or Benny -” 

“Baird,” he corrects her. 

“Baird. He kept telling me odd stories about his tortoise, acting a bit too chummy, and then I was brought in to talk to your father and he. . .” She falters here, probably remembering who she’s talking about, but there’s no need. He knows what his dad is. 

“Let me guess, he looked at you like a steak in a deli counter,” Roman guesses. “Gave you the old creepy elevator eyes.” 

“He was unpleasant to be around,” she confirms. “And that was before he’d amassed the empire he has now. I can’t imagine. . .” She punctuates it with a shake of her head, reaching over and forking another waffle onto her plate.

He doesn’t know where to go from there, isn’t angry or offended, just at a loss. It was easy to block things out when he was still in a tight orbit around Logan, but the farther away he gets, the longer he’s not involved with Waystar, the worse he feels about things. Money is money, business and business, but there’s a cruelty he recognizes now and he can’t shake the feeling of it whenever he thinks about his dad, the way he and his siblings grew up. 

“So tell me about your date,” Roman says. Sounds too loud and blustery, his legs going numb from where he has them pretzeled beneath him, his knee at an odd angle. 

“I don’t think so,” she says, her nose wrinkling as she takes a bite of her waffle, and he tracks her mouth as it opens and then closes around her fork. 

“Come on,” he cajoles. “Who else you gonna tell about a lame lay? Your kids? Some friend who lives on Riverside Drive and masturbates to Wagner, flicks it to _Parsifal_?” 

“I’m surprised you know any opera.” 

“It’s all pretentious bullshit, my life is the worse for knowing it. But orchestral stuff is okay. Symphonies and shit.” 

He actually has a season ticket to the philharmonic, always goes alone, dressed in a way that won’t call attention. It’s one of the few things he ever did with his mother growing up, his father always refusing to go, and he still finds it calming. It doesn’t make him think about his childhood anymore, not really anyway, it’s just a weird kind of ritual he crafted for himself, one of the few habits in the chaotic spiral that is his life. 

He stopped going when he and Tabitha moved in together, when she wanted to go all dressed up, people bound to notice them and take pictures. It ruined it for him, though he never found the words to tell her, just stopped going, telling her it was boring shit anyway. 

“He ordered my dinner for me,” she says now, sitting back in her chair. “Like it was 1952 or something.” 

“And you still brought him back, gave up the goods?” 

“The conversation was decent. He was handsome.” Roman pulls a face at this, and she chuckles, her hand over her mouth. “Handsome enough anyway, and besides, I’ve already dated most of the appropriate men in this city.” 

“Oh _really_?” He draws out the last word, leans his chin on his hands. 

“Did you spike my coffee?” she asks him suddenly. 

“I might spike the next one,” he says, “but no, why?” 

“I’m not normally this unfiltered,” she tells him, frowning here, like she’s disappointed or trying to figure something out. 

“You were about to tell me about your slutty ways,” he reminds her, hopping up and grabbing the coffee pot, a bottle of Irish whiskey for good measure. She lets him fill her cup with both, motioning with two fingers for more whiskey than he initially doles out. 

“I’ve had a rule since my divorce,” she says. “Five date maximum. No getting tied down again.” 

“Five date maximum,” he repeats, whistling for effect. “Wow, you’re fucking cold. I’m impressed.” 

“I always tell them up front, but then they still get attached and I have to dodge their phone calls, texts. I work a lot, I don’t have much time for dating anyway, but I think I’ve still run through all the desirable ones and now I’m stuck with… the boring fucks.” 

“Maybe you can switch to women,” he says. 

She doesn’t even blink when she replies, “I haven’t done that since the eighties. Too much drama for my taste.” 

He can’t tell if she’s serious or only pulling his leg, and he guffaws out loud here. Feels stuffed with joy and excitement, his stomach heavy with carbs, sticky syrup still on his fingers. 

She leaves not long after that, doesn’t thank him for breakfast or offer to help him clean up, and that amuses him too. 

He leaves the mess in the dining room, going into his bedroom to fall into a nice little coma, wake up disoriented and thoroughly fucked from the time change. 

. . .


	3. Chapter 3

Roman thinks he might let the that whole ride sharing deal die on the vine after two more meetings in San Francisco, feels like there’s something weird going on that he can’t put his finger on, but then they come back with a sweeter offer, basically bending themselves over a chair and asking to be railed, and he reconsiders. Sends it all on to his lawyers to pour over, see if there’s anything hinky. 

He’s going to the philharmonic tonight, first time since last season, and he puts on the most boring pair of slacks he owns, pairs it with a navy sweater. He thought the whole premise of Superman comics was stupid when he was kid, would mock the idea that people wouldn’t recognize Clark Kent because of a pair of fucking glasses, but he sees the truth in it now. Without his custom made suits, his Italian shoes, he’s just a nobody, a normo, and when he throws a hat on, no one ever looks twice. 

He’s already in the elevator when Gerri gets on, a man beside her, the two of them dressed up, clearly on a date. Her eyes go wide for a moment before they narrow, a subtle warning, and all Roman does here is smirk, move over to the corner. Swallows down his jokes about her date’s choice in cologne and his fake tan, the way the guy keeps glancing at Gerri like he knows she’s going to cast him off at any moment, a used condom thrown into a garbage can. 

They get into a car parked in front of the building and Roman hangs back for a minute before he hails a cab. Sometimes there are society reporters at the phil, an occasional photographer, but they never pay attention to anyone getting out of a cab, and he walks in unnoticed, like always. 

The philharmonic is doing some Handel and Purcell tonight, the whole season looking pretty heavy on Germans, which Roman isn’t thrilled about, not that he has elaborate theories about music. He isn’t particularly educated about it, never had much interest in fixing that either, he just likes to sit and listen, people near him glaring as his knee bounces incessantly for an hour and a half. 

He’s more fidgety than usual tonight, the woman two seats over shooting him a withering look after ten minutes of him squirming in his seat, but he settles down eventually, his eyes on the orchestra, and then soon enough it’s intermission. 

He’s lined up at the bar, waiting to grab himself a drink, when he feels someone brush against his elbow, a rustling of fabric next to him. 

“I don’t take kindly to being fucking followed,” Gerri hisses at him, and Roman almost jumps, jerking so much that he drops his program on the floor. “I don’t care who your family is or how much money you may have.”

“What?” he manages, grabbing up the program. The line is moving now, people shuffling forward, and Gerri shoves him to get him in motion, the people behind them making restless noises at the hold up. “I’m not a fucking stalker,” he says, and she shoots him a glare here. She’s wearing a black lace dress and dangling ears that catch the light, her eye makeup darker than how she usually has it. “I come here all the time,” he blabbers on, “I’m a fucking season ticket holder!” 

“Oh yeah?” she says, sarcasm dripping, “I’m sure you have a cultivated apprehension for English Baroque.” 

“Well it’s better than fucking Handel,” he shoots back. “People fellating themselves over _Messiah_ when it’s got what, like five good minutes at best?” 

They’re at the front of the line now, and Roman’s tempted to just walk away, leave entirely, only the bartender notices him first, a lame smile on the dude’s face because Roman always tips him out the ass, most of the time skipping the line altogether.

“Scotch, right? Two rocks?” the kid says, and Roman only nods, still stewing, crawling out of his fucking skin with discomfort. “Haven’t seen you around since last season.” 

Roman only shrugs, not sure what to say here, and then the bartender looks at Gerri expectantly, waiting for her drink order, and she clears her throats. Says, “vodka martini, two olives.” 

Roman pays for both of them, handing the kid a hundred and waving off the change, Gerri cradling her drink and staring at him, her date now off in the near distance, glaring at Roman like he’s taken the last crab leg at a fucking buffet. 

“Roman,” Gerri says, ignoring that her date is waving at her here, but Roman doesn’t want to hear whatever it is she’s about to say, hates that he’s going to have to avoid her in the hallway now, maybe sell his apartment, when he didn’t do anything wrong. People just assume he’s going to be a creep because he looks like one, was raised by a whole pack of them. 

“Your date looks like he’s having a stroke,” Roman tells her, nodding with his chin. Puts his hat on and pulls it down over his face because people have started staring at them. “Enjoy your evening.” 

He disappears into the crowd after that. Sucks down his drink and tries to make himself stay through the rest of the performance but it’s all fucked now, he can’t sit still, and he gets up twenty minutes later, hailing a cab to take him home. 

He’s been working on not numbing his feelings with booze, doesn’t want to go down the same road as Kendall, but it’s tempting to pour himself into a bottle when he’s in his living room, shoes off, thinking about the way Gerri looked at him at the phil, the anger and disdain radiating off her. 

He throws the program in the drawer in the kitchen where he keeps the others, drifts around rooms after that, picking things up only to put them down again. He ends up out on the balcony, freezing his ass off, music blasting in from the living room.

There’s a knock at the door and he knows immediately that it’s Gerri, but he has no desire to open it. Lots of people have thought him some species of asshole and they’ve mostly been right, so he doesn’t know why a neighbor doing the same bothers him this much.

But he can do without her casting disparaging glances his way in his own fucking home, so whatever she wants to say now, she can shove it up her ass. 

The knocking stops at some point, for which he’s relieved, and he makes a mental note to adjust his schedule from now on. She always leaves for work at a quarter to seven, usually comes back home between nine and ten, so he’ll just steer clear of the common areas around then. He’s maybe been lurking during those times the last few weeks, trying to bump into her since that breakfast, and he sees now that this was foolish, an obvious ploy. A sad sack kid with a crush on the babysitter. 

He texts Tabitha for the first time in a month. Sends her another, _I’m sorry_. There are nine identical, unanswered texts above it, but it feels less and less like he’s apologizing to her anymore, more like he’s seeking absolution from the universe. 

. . . 

He has dinner with Shiv for the first time in almost a year, no dipshit husband of hers in sight, just the two of them shoveling sushi into their pie holes in a tiny restaurant where no one will recognize them. 

“A little birdie tells me you really fucked up that whole thing with the Pierces,” Roman says, timing it so that her mouth is full and she can only glare at him, her face screwing up with annoyance. 

“Well your little birdie can go fuck himself,” Shiv says after she swallows. “Him and his soulmate, Naomi.” 

Roman laughs at that, sipping some sake. Orders them a couple of sake bombs the next time their server passes by the table. 

“Why do I let you talk me into these,” Shiv groans, her face already flushed. She can hold her booze well, family trait, but sake gets to her pretty fast. 

“You alright?” he asks her, after they’ve done their shots, Roman whooping when she manages to beat him at chugging. 

“Those are rough,” she shakes her head, pulling a face. 

“No,” he says, moving some sashimi around his plate with his chopsticks. “I mean all that shit with the Pierces. Dad. You okay?” 

“It’s been really fucked up since you left,” she says, shrugging one shoulder. “I mean, I always _knew_ he’d hang one of us out to dry, theoretically, but then he did it with you and for like no fucking real reason, and it’s just super weird now. Frank wouldn’t even come back for that stuff at Tern Haven, flat out refused.” 

“He having some belated guilt about my ritual sacrifice?” Roman jokes here. Shoves some wasabi into his mouth, the resulting burn a pleasant distraction. 

“Maybe?” Shiv says. “I mean dad fired him again but then tried to bring him back, and that’s like, what? The tenth time? But Frank wouldn’t roll over this time, only sent some bullshit note back about being in Italy and making time for his family.” 

“Wow,” Roman says. “That’s a line worthy of a shovel.”

“Right?” Shiv laughs, picking at her food now. “I know it was stupid to think it could be me, that he wasn’t just playing me, but he really sold it.” 

Roman doesn’t say anything, knows how that goes, certainly doesn’t miss the mind games. 

They wrestle over the bill at the end, like actually wrestling, people watching them as she pins him down in the booth, Roman shrieking when she bites him on the arm. 

“Ow, you fucking bitch,” Roman says, and his sister laughs, check presenter in her hand. 

“I don’t want you to ever forget that I’m stronger and better than you,” she says. Makes a grand flourish with her credit card when their server comes around to collect it. 

Sushi always makes him jones for ice cream and he thinks about stopping at a bodega or something, but it’s almost nine o’clock and he doesn’t want to come strolling into his building any later than he already is, too risky. 

He knows he’s being childish, avoiding a woman he barely knows, and the farther he gets from that night at the symphony, the more he understands why she might have freaked out. Kind of. But he’s made a ritual of not overlapping with her now, the closest thing to a schedule he’s had since he was in military school, and he sees no reason to let it slide away, start haunting her in the elevator again, a cockroach that didn’t die on the first squash. 

He orders two kinds of ice cream on a delivery app from the comfort of his couch, sees the little tracker indicate that it’ll be here in twenty minutes, and he delights in the wait, dreamily thinking about the sugar high that is to come. 

Soon enough there’s a knock on the door, Roman practically skipping to open it, a wad of bills in his hand. He throws it open to find Gerri on the other side, a plastic sack with his order dangling from her wrist. 

“It’s awfully rude to intercept a man’s ice cream,” he says, not sure what to make of her being on his doorstep, her expressionless face a foot from his. 

“Are you really going to eat all of this?” she asks, but sounds a little off, like maybe she’s uncomfortable and trying to hide it with the joke. 

“That depends,” he says. “If I invite you in to share it, does that still qualify as stalking?” 

“Fuck,” she breathes out, closing her eyes here. She’s still dressed for work, has on heels, pearls, and a silk blouse, her expression at odds with the closed off persona her clothes are clearly meant to project. “I know I must have sounded like a crazy bitch. My job sometimes makes me a little paranoid.” 

“I gathered that,” he says, takes his ice cream from her and moves away from the door. He leaves it open but doesn’t invite her in. Her choice to make. 

“I could explain,” she says, following him in and closing the door, “but I think I’d rather just apologize so you’ll stop avoiding me like I have the plague.” 

“I haven’t been avoiding you,” he lies. Shoves the ice cream in the freezer when he sees that it’s a little runny. “Hope you didn’t tip that delivery person, my ice cream is like fucking soup.” 

“It will amuse you to know that my date to the symphony left in a huff that night,” she says, leaning against the counter here. “Which is probably for the better because if not, I would have killed him with a crowbar and made my driver bury his body.” 

“Serves you right for not sending him away the moment you saw that spray tan,” Roman tells her, and she laughs here, open and loud in a way that she hasn’t before, not in front of him anyway. 

“The first big case I ever handled was against this massive conglomerate, a multi-headed hydra with eyes everywhere.” She pauses, watching him for a beat before she averts her eyes, saying, “they managed to bug my home.”

“Yikes,” he says, not sure how he’s supposed to respond to this. 

“They bugged my bedroom,” she elaborates. “I was still married at the time.” 

“Ohhhh,” he says, eyes going wide here. “That’s… really fucking shitty.” 

She nods. Says, “I guess I’ve been overly cautious since then.”

“Makes sense,” he allows. 

“But I’m still sorry,” she says here, though he isn’t even angry anymore. Not really. 

“That’s life,” he says, and pulls the ice cream back out of the freezer. It’s not ready, but he needs something to do with his hands. 

She moves around his kitchen, opening and closing drawers, obviously looking for the silverware. He could just tell her where it is, but it’s enjoyable to watch her search, the way she methodically moves in one direction, efficiently glancing into a space and then closing it up again. 

He winces when she gets to the drawer with all his programs from the philharmonic, doesn’t really want to talk about that night anymore, but she only pauses for a moment, staring down at the mass of creased papers, before she moves onto the next drawer, finding the utensils. 

“Do you have any decent scotch?” she asks him, when she’s dishing up the ice cream, the scoop held in her hand like a weapon. 

“Loads,” he says, tapping his hands against the counter. “Single malt?” 

“Obviously.”

He pours himself only a bit, pours far more generously for her, bringing both of their drinks over to the couch. 

She slides her shoes off before she sits down, and something about that makes him happy, loosens the knot of anxiety that formed in him when he opened his door to find her there. 

She’s wearing nylons, a nude color that’s easy to see through to the red of her toenails, and he stares at her feet here, somehow delighted by such a simple thing. 

“Stop that,” she orders, tucking her feet under herself. “I haven’t had a pedicure in a month.”

“They looked fine to me,” he says. Picks up the bowl she’s sat in front of him, spoon in hand. 

She wrinkles her forehead here, like she’s put off or something, but he hasn’t done anything, he’s only being nice. 

“Is this how you woo tall, willowy blonds?” she asks. “This type of charm offensive?”

“‘I’ve yet to charm you once this evening,” he says, thrown off by that. “Too shellshocked by you showing up with my fucking dessert as a hostage.” 

“Well I needed some kind of leverage,” she says, “and you have no dog to steal.” 

“That’s actually changing next week,” he interrupts her. Gets his phone out to show her because he’s so excited he can’t stand it. “See, this handsome motherfucker here is going to be mine, as of Thursday.” 

“Oh no,” she says, pulling her glasses out and looking down her nose at his phone. “You’re going to become one of those insufferable people who talk about a dog like it’s a child, will get one of those idiotic baby buggies to cart it around in.” 

“Um, no,” Roman says. “Prince Albert is big enough to walk on his own four legs.” 

“You named your dog after Queen Victoria’s husband?” she asks, eyebrows shooting up as she spoons more ice cream into her mouth. 

“Don’t be lame,” he says as he picks up his scotch, gesturing with the glasses. “I named him after the fucking piercing.” 

She laughs at that, mouth still full of ice cream, has to cover her lips with her hand to keep it from coming out, and Roman beams, feeling victorious, fucking triumphant. 

She flips him off.

“You must have missed having me as a friend,” he says, before he can stop himself, and she freezes here, clearly surprised by that. 

Fuck him and his dumb fucking mouth. 

“Is this what this?” she asks him. “A friendship?” 

It’s tempting to make a joke here about how she’s actually his masturbatory fantasy, which is still true. He never stopped thinking of her that way, not even when he was busy avoiding her, but it’s a weird joke to make, he knows better than that now, so he tries to play it straight. 

“Well you throw your men away after five dates,” he says, “but that doesn’t apply to friendships, right?” 

“No,” she says carefully. “Friends I keep around.”

“Well then yes, I had hoped this was the start of a friendship.” 

“Alright,” she says, after she’s paused, given every appearance that she’s thinking it over like some business deal. “But on the condition that you keep supplying me with booze and carbs. Keep your dirty Prince Albert away from me.” 

“Rude,” he says, though he’s snickering here. “Fucking rude.” 

“Those are my terms,” she says, blinking slowly. Throws back her scotch and then looks pointedly at her empty glass. 

“Like some lowly servant,” he gripes, stretching his legs out from where he’s had them folded up. Stands up, grabbing her glass for a refill. 

She sets their bowls in the sink while he does it, doesn’t move to wash them. He has papers on the counter, legal bullshit from the ride sharing deal, and he can hear her shuffling them over, probably away from the sink. 

“Can you get out of this?” she asks him suddenly. Comes back to the couch with part of the paperwork clutched in her hand. 

“Now who’s going through shit that isn’t theirs,” he says. But he isn’t actually angry, only thrown for a loop by the randomness of the question. 

“Can you get out of it?” she repeats, slowing the words down, creating emphasis, and Roman can see now that her demeanor has changed, her body held upright, rigid. 

“I’m not sure,” he says. “Maybe. It’s still with my lawyers.” 

“Get out of it,” she tells him, a seriousness about her that he’s never seen before. Maybe this is what she’s like at work? “You don’t want your name or your money anywhere near these people.” 

“Okay,” he says, handing her drink back here. “Care to tell me why?” There was a time when he had such little confidence in himself that he would have followed someone else’s lead, anyone else’s lead, but he needs more than a commanding tone to convince him of things now. 

“I can’t tell you,” she shakes her head. “Please just trust me. You’ll regret ever partnering up with them.” 

“You’re asking me to call off a fifty-million-dollar deal based on nothing more than your word,” he points out. Watches as she folds herself back onto his couch, cradling her drink in her lap. “I mean, I like you, I do, you tell a mean joke, but we’ve spent maybe a few hours together.” 

“I wish I could explain, but I’d be disbarred.”

She changes the subject after that, gets him talking about the symphony and why he doesn’t really like Handel. 

“I spotted you behind us when we came in,” she tells him. “Part of what spooked me is that you didn’t have a better seat. Surely you can afford to buy out the whole front row and the balconies to boot.” 

“I don’t like people to notice me there,” he admits. “Having to play the whole fucking dashing rich kid with an erection role, when I’m only there to listen to some pretty music.” 

“You aren’t a kid,” she says, tilting her head to the side. And something about the way she says it makes his skin tingle. 

“Nope,” he smirks. “Just a trained monkey in an expensive suit.” 

He goes to bed thinking about what she said about the ride share app, the bad vibes he got when he first walked away from the deal. He wakes up the next morning and tells his lawyers to pull the plug on it, one of them warning him that there might be litigation now, but Roman doesn’t care. He’s had a bad feeling from the start of it and what Gerri’s said only confirms it. 

Three weeks later a story breaks about one of the developers being a serial predator, several lawsuits in the works, and it’s tempting to text Gerri (he has her cell number now), but he doesn’t think that’s wise. He pops into a florist instead, has three dozen roses sent to her law firm, no card attached. 

“Thank you,” he says, when she turns up at his door that night, her eyes warily watching the dog where he sleeps on the floor. 

“What are friends for,” she says, and he invites her in for a drink. 

“No date tonight?” he asks because it’s Friday and if she goes out with someone, it’s tonight, though sometimes she’ll push them off to Saturday. 

“God no,” she says. “I so don’t have the energy for all that. Not this month.” The dog stretches, getting up and coming over to sniff her, and she allows it until he licks her hand, then gently pushes him away. “Am I going to get dog hair all over me if I sit on your couch?” 

“I should hope not,” he says. “Or my fucking cleaning service will be fired.” 

She chuckles at that. Asks him about what he thought of the last philharmonic last week. She went too, he’s learned she likes to take first dates there because she thinks it’s a good test. If they talk too much, they fail; if they’re too pretentious about things, they fail; if they don’t know anything about classical music, they fail. 

He wonders if anyone ever passes, but he hasn’t asked her yet. 

“Thank you again for that thing,” he says. Feels awkward and clumsy here because he’s never been good at this kind of thing. Being genuine. 

“You already said that,” she frowns. Folds her feet under her so he can’t see her toes, which makes him irrationally amused. 

“It bears repeating,” he says. Shrugs here because he’s not sure what else to do with himself. 

“Charm offensive,” she accuses, and he gapes at that. 

“I’m not!” 

“Fucking liar,” she says. “But I’m older and wiser than the models you usually cavort around with, so.” 

“Did you hear that, Albert?” he asks the dog. “She comes in here, drinks my booze, and then insults the fucking both of us.” 

Gerri’s smiling around her scotch here, her toes peeking out enough for him to see that her nail polish is pink now, bright and bubblegum, completely at odds with how she presents herself to the world. 

“What’s that shade?” he asks her, pointing to her nails, and she promptly tucks her feet back under herself. “Barbie’s Dream Twat?” 

He laughs when a throw pillow nails him in the forehead, nearly jostles the drink right out of his hand. 

. . .


	4. Chapter 4

He’s only half an hour into this bullshit family dinner and he already loathes his siblings for talking him into accepting this fucking invitation. 

It was probably a mistake to have the first meet up with his dad on Logan’s home turf, but he tries to make polite small talk with Shiv and Kendall over hors d'oeuvres, not bust Wambsgans’ balls as much as he wants. He still mocks Greg every chance he gets. 

His dad’s only spoken three words to him so far, and two of those were a grunted out greeting, but maybe it could be worse. More words would probably, certainly, be worse.

“Where the fuck is Marcia?” Roman mouths to Shiv, and she shakes her head, eyes wide, as if he’d fucking ask their dad that outright. Like, come on dude, he’s not an idiot, and he tries to convey this sentiment to her in a series of annoyed expressions. 

“Romulus,” Logan says, when they all sit down to dinner, salad being passed. “Baird tells me you narrowly avoided getting your dick chopped off in a deal with some fucking start-up.” 

That tone of voice still makes Roman’s hands shake, but he tries to steady himself. Takes a breath, looking at Kendall before he says, “they threw a shit ton of money my way, but it didn’t feel right in the end, so I pulled out.” 

“Finally,” Logan grunts, “someone with some common sense around here.”

It’s the kind of backhanded compliment he would have been over the moon about before, but he knows what it means now. His dad lifts one kid up as a way of smacking down the others, and he’s just not interested anymore. He shoots an apologetic look to Kendall, gives Shiv a sly wink.

His phone buzzes during the main course, and he checks it under the table. He sees Gerri’s name pop up at the top of his texts, willing away his smile when he reads, _I’m at the most boring anniversary party, in an apartment on Riverside Drive_. 

The conversation at the table shifts to something else, Kendall doing most of the talking, Roman trying to pay attention, not undermine his brother, but his phone buzzes again and every second that he doesn’t check it feels like lowgrade torture. 

“It’s going to be a really useful algorithm,” Kendalls finishes, and Roman nods, has no idea what the fuck his brother has been on about. 

He flips his phone over, smirking when he reads, _Upon reflection, I think you were right before. Someone in this apartment absolutely masturbates to Parsifal_. 

He remembers that exchange but he’s surprised that she does, something deep in his chest expanding that she’s thrown his own words back to him with such clarity, even if it was only a crude joke he’d once made. 

He texts her back, _Whose party is this again?_ But then he tries to leave his phone alone because Shiv is staring at him here, her head cocked in a way that only means trouble. 

“Hate to eat and run,” he says, when dessert comes out, “but I’ve got some things to do.”

“Oh?” Logan says. Maybe a challenge, probably not disappointment, and Roman doesn’t care much either way. 

“Gotta bugger a lady about a dead horse,” Roman says, moving to hug Kendall. Claps him on the back when they pull apart. 

“I’ll walk you out,” Shiv says, and Roman cringes. 

“Nah, not necessary.” 

“Oh, I insist,” she says, looping her arm through his. They’re outside, Roman’s car service not here yet, and Shiv turns on him as soon as the front door is closed behind him. “Who is she?” 

“No one,” Roman says, and Shiv punches his arm. “Fucking ow, that hurt.” 

“You said you weren’t dating anyone!” 

“I’m not,” he says, throwing up his hands. 

“Then who the fuck were you texting, and don’t tell me it’s your fucking dog. He’s not that smart.” 

“Al is a genius,” Roman says. “Way fucking smarter than Wambsgans’ dumbass dog, so you take that back.” 

It took him all of a month to realize that long names for dogs are a waste; no one out on the street at eleven at night, pleading with their dog to take a shit, will ever use more than two fucking syllables when addressing them. The dog’s lucky if he even gets called Albert.

“Who is she?” Shiv says, pinching him now, and they tussle on the sidewalk, Roman elbowing her hard to get her off. 

“She’s a friend, okay,” he says, when they pull apart. “But that’s it, she’s just a friend.” 

“Like, a friend that your dick visits?” she asks, pitching her voice, and Roman is relieved as hell when his car pulls up. 

“Fuck you and no,” he says. Is tempted to leave it there but instead he rolls his eyes, saying, “I love you, be nice to Kendall, he’s more fragile than us.” 

Roman gives the driver the address he’s ferreted out for the friends Gerri’s apparently stuck celebrating; no one’s address is ever truly unlisted, only more expensive to find. The building is old, obviously pre-war, and Roman thinks he’s going to die of old age before the ancient elevator chugs to the top floor. The apartment door is propped open, noise and voices spilling out, and Roman walks in confidently, has snuck in way better places than this lame ass party by way of acting like he belongs. 

Every wall that can have wallpaper on it does, in fact, have some kind of wallpaper, the whole place smelling of things that can’t be properly dusted, too many fabrics piled on surfaces. He waves at a few people like he knows them, most of them waving back, and as soon as he sees a cater waiter, he grabs two glasses of champagne. 

“Have you seen Gerri?” he asks an old geezer. Deliberately picks out the sort of guy who would never forget an ass he’d like to pinch. 

“Next room,” the guy tells him, a lecherous smile on his face, and Roman kind of wants to deck him but he also feel grateful. Pats the guy on the shoulder like they’re old chums. 

He shimmies past a few more people, coming into a parlour to find Gerri being held hostage by a couple telling a long, elaborate story, both of them doing that annoying as fuck thing where they switch off, finishing each other’s sentences, and it’s tempting to saddle up behind them here, do some filthy pantomiming that will make it hard for Gerri to keep a straight face, but she’s wearing a black dress tonight, a short one that comes several inches above the knee, and he hates that her looking so hot is wasted on all these boring as shit Viagra addicts. 

“Sorry I’m late,” he says, sliding beside her, one arm around her waist, and the woman who’s speaking falters here. 

“Oh,” Gerri says, obviously trying to cover, think on her feet as he hands her a glass of champagne. “That’s alright.” The milquetoast couple looks at Gerri expectantly and Roman can feel her internal sigh when she says, “this is my friend, Roman.” 

“Roman Roy,” he extends his hand, all smiles and charm, and he can see the man’s eyes light up in recognition here. He can tell he’s about to become a second hostage when the guy starts blabbering on, so Roman interrupts him before he can build up steam, saying, “I’m so sorry, but there’s a friend of the family in the other room and we can’t leave without saying hello.” 

Gerri’s makes their apologies as he tugs her on by the hand, out of the line of fire, and he can tell people are looking at them now, her hand in his, but he only smiles, winking at that one dirty bastard as they pass him, Gerri pressed into his side as they move. 

“We can stay here and create more of a scandal,” he stage whispers into her ear, “or we can leave now.” 

“Oh, I think you’ve created enough of a scandal for me to explain away,” Gerri says, but she doesn’t seem angry, judging by her tone. “Let me just grab my wrap.” 

He goes with her, doesn’t really want to have to find her again, but they get stopped five more times, people looking to introduce themselves to a member of the Roy family, get their names out there. 

“Thanks so much for having us,” Roman says to hosts, as he’s hustling Gerri out the door. “Great party.” He thinks he hears Gerri scoff at that, her face turned away, but it’s hard to tell with all the noise. 

“I didn’t mean for you to leave your family dinner,” she says, once they’re bumping along in the elevator. 

“I know,” he says, “but it was horrible anyway and I’d much rather come save you. Make fun of miserable asshats who collect bad art, wear horrendous skirts that look like they belong around Christmas trees.” 

“You saw that?” she asks, hand shooting to his arm here. 

“Yes,” he laughs. “What the fuck was that? I kept staring at it even though I knew I shouldn’t. Fucking fabric Gorgon.”

She smiles at that, her eyes sparkling, and he thinks about what it would be like to kiss here, but he knows better. Won’t ruin things by poking his tiny dick into them. 

“Do you want to go home?” he asks, when they walk to his car. It was warm today but it’s cooled off now, a thick layer of clouds blocking out the moon, maybe threatening rain. 

“I probably should,” she says, sliding over to make room for him, their legs touching briefly when he moves over too quickly. They’ve been in traffic for maybe five minutes when she asks, “if not home, then where?” 

“How comfortable are those heels?” he asks her, a grin on his face. 

They pull up to a bar that plays music, drunken people swaying on the other side of the windows, and he can tell by the way she holds herself that she’s uneasy, probably out of her element. 

“Not what I was expecting,” she admits. 

“If you don’t like it, we’ll leave,” he promises, and she nods once, a contract signed. 

He buys them both wine because he assumes she’s been drinking champagne the rest of the night, knows she’ll probably have to do some work tomorrow, doesn’t want to torpedo her day with a hangover. 

“I should probably stop after this one,” she says. “I might have had more than my usual at that party.” 

“Trying to numb the pain,” he deadpans. “You’d fit in well with my family.” 

“Maybe I’ll tag along to the next Roy family picnic,” she says, watching a couple in front of them dancing poorly. He knows she means that as a joke, but he’d actually enjoy that. Too bad she’d be so miserable at a Roy family dinner, she’d probably never talk to him again. 

“I like you too much to ever subject you to my family,” he says, and she raises her eyebrows here, her lips twitching in a smile. “Do you want to dance with me, show these fuckers up?” 

“Not like we have a lot of competition,” she says, looking around with obvious disdain, but a new song comes on, something old and that sounds like jazz, and she lifts her hands to his shoulders, his arms going to her waist. They dance that way to three songs, his chin grazing cheek, her hair falling in his face. 

“Thank you,” she says, when they get back in the car. “I think I needed that.” 

“Would have been a shame to waste that dress,” he says, looking out the window, and when he turns back she’s staring at him, an odd expression on her face.

It was a nice time, the dancing was fun, but a weird energy emerges in the car when they pull up at their building, the driver bidding them both a good night. 

“You alright?” she asks in the elevator. 

“Yeah,” he says, fidgeting. “The family stuff is just weird.” Not the truth, not a lie. The space he excels in.

They walk into each other when it’s time to get out on their floor, their shoulders colliding, and he tries to laugh off the awkwardness, accusing her of being drunk and disorderly. 

“Only the tiniest bit,” she says, slowing when she reaches her door. “You want to come in for a drink?” 

He’s never been inside her place beyond the foyer, they always seem to hang out at his, and the invitation sends something racing in him at the sametime that it makes him panic. 

“You’ll hate me tomorrow if you wake up with a hangover,” he says, and he can tell she’s going to say something snide here, a joke to level the playing field, so he cuts her off. “Thank you for the lovely evening,” he says, kissing her cheek. “I’m going to have nightmares about that apartment and that weird, demonic skirt, but still. A good time.” 

He slides into his apartment, feeling like he just dodged a bullet. But then he lets the dog out of his crate, Albert licking his face, and a heaviness settles in his chest. Like when he was a kid, missing out on something because he was always too small, too weak, clumsy and awkward-limbed.

. . . 

The Waystar cruise scandal breaks, and his life promptly goes to hell in a handbasket, people he’s in the middle of deals with making bullshit excuses on conference calls and paparazzi camped outside of his building. 

He’s had to hire someone to walk his own fucking dog, the woman coming to collect Al as Roman stands there petting him over and over again, like he’s apologizing for making the dog a Roy. 

There’s a knock at the door a few minutes later, Gerri letting herself in without waiting for him to even come to the door. 

“You have to start locking this,” she scolds him, and she’s right but he just forgets. “Those bottom feeders outside are really wound up today. Logan give a statement or something?”

“No,” he sighs. “But someone leaked the failed Pierce deal, maybe a lesser Pierce cousin or some other fucklehead, so now the whole country knows that my dad wanted to control literally all the news.” He makes a jerk off motion with his hand, Gerri standing in his kitchen, fussing with takeout containers. “You brought food?”

“Very observant,” she says. “Maybe you should be a detective.” She doesn’t sound like she’s teasing him, actually sounds pissed, and she’s wearing pearls and a conservative looking skirt, which means she probably spent the day in court.

“Bad day?” he asks, pouring her a martini. He can make a decent one and he keeps olives here for her now, plucks out two with a skewer and plunks them down into the glass.

“Fucking idiot clients who won’t take my fucking advice,” she grounds out, opening his silverware drawer. “Don’t mind me, I’m only the lawyer with over thirty years of experience, but sure, do what you want, no problem.”

He slides the martini toward her, Gerri snatching it out of his hand. He waits until half of it’s gone before he asks, “better?”

“Much,” she says. “Sorry. I’m in a bit of mood.” 

“I understand.”

She smiles at that, handing him a plate of food.

“Ohh, Indian,” he says, excited. “You’re going to have such bad heartburn later.”

“Probably,” she agrees, taking her usual seat at his dining table. “Guess I felt a bit masochistic when I was putting in for dinner.”

They usually eat together one night a week, have another meal brought in on Saturday or Sunday morning, but Roman’s pretty much a hostage these days, the press not caring a bit that he hasn’t been part of Waystar in over a fucking year. 

“Wait? Where’s the dog?” she asks, looking around. It’s nice out this evening, Roman’s balcony propped open, and she stares at the open door here. “He didn’t get so sick of living with you that he leapt to his death, did he?”

“He’s out with a fucking dog walker,” Roman says sourly. “Can’t even walk my own goddamn dog.”

“I’m sorry,” she offers, her face softening here. “I know this week’s been shit for you.”

“My dad’s been sniffing around lately, inviting me to more things, and I can’t figure out why.”

“You think he wants something?” she asks, slicing a bit of lamb with her knife. 

“Pop doesn’t do things out of love or concern,” he says. Shoves a fried bit of spicy something into his mouth, swallowing before he says, “Oh hey, do you still want to try for the phil this weekend?”

“Your little needledicked friends down there might make that impossible,” she says, motioning with her head. 

“Maybe, but I snuck out of my military academy every weekend for four years, only got caught once. Don’t count me out yet.”

“Up to you,” she says. “I’ll admit I’ve been looking forward to it, no shitty date to breathe on my neck.”

“I can breathe on your neck,” he waggles his eyebrows at her, and she doesn’t blink at that. 

“Empty promises,” she shoots back, and Roman falls quiet, unsure what to say to that. 

The dog walker turns up at some point with Albert, the dog bypassing Roman for Gerri, and Gerri gloats at Roman’s put off expression, tenderly rubbing Al behind the ear. 

They’re on the couch, drinks in hand, Al stretched out on the floor when the sound of rain sets in, the smell filling the living room, a spring breeze finding them where they sit. 

“The conglomerate that bugged your bedroom,” Roman says, gazing into his glass because can’t look at her here, “it wasn’t Waystar, was it?”

“No,” she says, and seems surprised by the question. Maybe expected him to look it up in her old cases, rather than asking her outright. “I’ve never had your family’s company in my crosshairs before.”

“No?” he asks, and he feels something unspool in him here. Maybe relief. He knows what a cesspool his father runs, no shortage of Uncle Mo’s lying about. 

“Well,” she says, drawing out the word, “this friendship would be impossible if I had, right? Bad optics on both sides.”

“I guess,” he allows. “Though that seems silly when I’m not a part of the company anymore.”

“A Roy by any other name,” she says, and he pulls a funny face here, not letting her finish the sentence. 

She starts to head out shortly after that, Roman kissing her on the cheek as she leaves, always an awkward beat between them when he does so, but this time, after the awkward bit, she pulls him into a hug. 

“You turned yourself into a really fine human, family be damned,” she says, arms around him, and he sags into her here. Didn’t know that he needed to hear that until she was telling him, her cheek smooshed against his. 

He holds her tighter after that, unwilling to let go quite yet, but eventually he had to fucking unhand her, tries not to act like an emotional goob when he opens the door, watching her glide back across the hall.

He washes the dishes himself that night, doesn’t even leave them for the cleaning service, and when he goes to sleep, he thinks about Gerri’s voice. Looks forward to taking her to the philharmonic, her arm bumping against his on the armrests, her hair grazing his face when she leans over to say something.

. . .

Logan asks him to stop by the house, Roman reluctantly agreeing because it’s easier to just turn up than blow off the invitation entirely. His dad won’t live forever, maybe another five years given that stroke, and though there’s a pain twisting deep in his gut at that, he mostly wants to keep things calm until then, tread water so things don’t blow up again with his siblings. 

He’s taking Gerri to the symphony tonight, has promised to stop by her office and pick her up so they can dodge the press, and he’s grateful for this now; something to look forward to after the meeting with his father, a previous engagement to cite as a reason to duck out quickly. 

There are people over, voices floating in from the TV room, but Logan’s sitting on the stairs when Roman comes in, looks kind of weird, flattened by the week maybe. He’s been looking a little frailer these days, Kendall making noises about being worried about him, Shiv’s lips forever pressed into a hard line, and Roman stands in the hall for a minute now, just staring at his dad while he sits there, the two of them sizing each other up. 

“We need an infusion of cash,” his dad says, no preamble or foreplay apparently. “Someone with enough money to take us private.” 

“I’m afraid I’m a little short on liquid funds since you fired me,” Roman says, somehow finding the courage to be a prick here. “But maybe if Connor and I both raid our piggy banks we can buy you an ice cream cone.” 

He expects his dad to shout at him, get enraged, but he only nods here. Gives him Roman a little speech about not being the fuck-knuckle he used to be, how he’s the only one who’ll be able to smell if the Turkish money is legit. 

“This goes farther south and we’re all fucking dead in the water,” Logan finishes, and Roman knows that ‘we’ is a total manipulation because his dad never says anything but ‘I’ and fucking ‘me’. 

“Fine,” Roman relents. “Set it up.” He spins around, calling over his shoulder, “and I’m gonna bring Frank back in, take him with me.” 

“Fuck Frank,” his dad spits, his voice rising. “Where was he when we fucking needed him?’ 

“Italy, I heard,” Roman says , trying to hide his fear here, trembling hands shoved in his pockets. “But I’m still bringing him back in.” 

He still doesn’t like Frank, probably never will, but he Karl and Laird are as full of shit as Baird, and he likes that Frank had the sense not to just roll over for all the Pierces shit, allow Logan Roy to fuck him in the ass one more time. 

Maybe Frank won’t even answer the phone for any member of the Roy family anymore, but Roman thinks he has a shot. Guilt and all that shit. He wonders how much of him hating Frank is the bullshit his dad made Frank do to keep the youngest son in line, a cow running into an electric fence over and over. 

He leaves his dad’s home without any of the empty exchanges they normally have when he’s off on his way, gets into car that’s still waiting for him, paparazzi camped out on the other side of the street, held at bay by private security who won’t think twice about breaking someone’s kneecap. 

_On my way,_ he texts Gerri, his stomach looping in on itself as he thinks about his father, what he’s agreed to do. 

He’ll stop a couple places, switch into a cab and then probably another, but her office isn’t far away and he thinks the whole press deflection routine will only take twenty or thirty minutes. 

He smiles a little when he looks down at this phone, the thumb’s up emoji Gerri sends in reply having popped up immediately. 

. . .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Ilona. ❤️


	5. Chapter 5

He gets buzzed up by the security in Gerri’s office building, someone handing him a pass and directing him to the tenth floor. He wonders what part of the tenth floor, doesn’t want to get lost, look like an idiot as he peers into some darkened accounting firm, but then he gets up there and sees that the whole floor is her firm, maybe part of the floor below it too, judging from the directory. 

There are lights on in hallways, a few people with doors open and takeout containers, clearly in it for the long haul even though it’s a Friday. Gerri’s office is all the way to the back, through a maze of corridors, and he can only imagine how intimidating it must be for people who are already nervous to cut this path, dragged on an invisible leash by some administrative assistant walking in front of them. 

It’s impressive. She’s very impressive. And he already knew that, had done his own research, seen the way people respond to her when she enters a room, but coming here is something else. 

She’s obviously slumming it by being friends with him. 

“Hey,” he says, poking his head into her office. The suite of admin desks just outside are all empty, her staff apparently dismissed, and he wonders if that’s typical or she just didn't want them to see this - the idiot savant with an infamous name darkening her door. 

“Hey,” she echoes, papers laid out in front of her, two computer screens still on. “I need to finish something for just a minute and then I’ll get changed.” 

He brought himself his own change of clothing, didn’t want to turn up at his family home in his drab philharmonic uniform, figured he can just leave the other stuff here, maybe cart it back later. 

“You mind if I borrow your facilities?” he asks, motioning toward the bag he has with him, and she waves him away, obviously too preoccupied to care what he does. 

He isn’t sure where the bathroom is, locks himself in a conference room instead. He doesn’t see any cameras but they’re probably just cleverly hidden. He takes delight in the possibility of being the highlight of some dirty old goat’s boring week. 

He’s putting on easy clothes, missing sweater weather here because then he wouldn’t have to fight with buttons, but he’s redressed in ten minutes flat, shoes switched out and everything, and then he just has to find his way back to Gerri’s office, cutting back through the fucking glass labyrinth. 

He walks in to find her office empty, turns around in a circle before he calls, “Gerri?” 

“Here,” she says, her voice ringing out from an open door in the corner. Probably the bathroom he couldn’t find. 

“Shit,” he manages, spinning around when he gets there because her dress isn’t zipped yet, her back exposed, the black band of her bra showing. He didn’t mean to walk in on her. “Sorry,” he says. 

“No need,” she says, voice casual. “It’s actually good timing. I was going to have to contort myself to get this thing zipped.”

“Right,” he says, taking a shaky breath. “Roman Roy to the rescue.” 

He doesn’t think he acts weird when he walks in, confidently taking hold of her zipper and tugging it up, but honestly he could be reciting the fucking alphabet out loud for all he knows. Her perfume smells stronger, maybe recently applied, the skin of her back is smooth and pale, and he thinks she must have been careful of the sun for decades to keep it looking so creamy. But he just breathes through it, running a hand down her dress once it zipped, smoothing it out, then stepping away. 

“Thank you,” she says. “I thought I was going to have to dislocate my shoulder to do that.” 

“I have no doubt you could have had a line around the building if you’d solicited volunteers.” He only means it as a joke, the kind of flirty thing he says to cut the tension sometimes, but they’re standing in front of a mirror and he can see her watching him here, eyes tracking his every movement. 

“Maybe so,” she says. “But I don’t need them, not when I have you.” 

He follows her out, noticing she’s shoeless still, only her nylons on.

“Ohhh, let’s see,” he says, motioning for her to stop, and she looks heavenward when he glances down at her feet, noting the purple nail polish. “Very gay and posh but also kind of porny. Shades of Teletubbies Do Telluride.” 

“Not your best work,” she tells him, reaching for a pair of heels she’s stashed on a shelf. 

“No,” he agrees. “Kind of off tonight. Family stuff.” She waits him out here, clearly expecting him to go on as she slips on one shoe after another, but he doesn’t want to talk about it, didn’t mean to even mention it, she’s just thrown him off kilter. “Long story,” he deflects. “Tell you later.” 

She doesn’t say anything to that, maybe senses his unease and means to leave it be. He’s noticed she’s good about that, letting silences lie, and it’s one of the many things he admires about her. 

“I don’t mind telling you that this is the most underdressed I’ve ever felt,” she says, when they’re waiting for the elevator. She’s in a blue sheath dress, the kind of thing he knows she owns in countless iterations and colors, will wear into the office on weekends, no client meetings or court clogging up her time. 

“Are you uncomfortable?” he asks, though he thinks she looks great. “Want to stop at home to change?” 

“I’m used to putting more effort in,” she admits. “But do I want to change into a dress that requires three different slimmers and an ungodly uncomfortable bra? Fuck no.” 

“You don’t need three different slimmers,” he tells her, Gerri scoffing as the elevator opens on the floor below them, some fat dude smiling at them as he gets on, pressing the button for the two floors down. The lazy motherfucker. “Maybe take the stairs for the exercise, you walking clogged artery,” he mutters when the guy’s gone again, the doors having slid closed. He turns to Gerri. “Seriously, you don’t need Spanx or whatever the fuck, you’re already really hot without all that.” 

“I wasn’t fishing,” she says, sounding annoyed here. Charges ahead of him when they reach the lobby, three feet quickly between them even though her legs are shorter. 

“Gerri!” he calls, “fucking wait up!” 

She’s out on the sidewalk before he knows it, hailing a cab because she knew to dismiss her car service for the night. She catches one in a few seconds, of course she fucking does, she’s Gerri, but Roman’s sprinting now, grabbing her wrist before she can get in. 

“Roman -” 

“Just fucking wait a minute,” he begs, some guy trying to steal their cab while they’re both standing right there, the door clearly open for them, and Roman angrily kicks it closed, almost pinning the guy’s leg, the cab driver loudly complaining until Roman hands him a wad of bills. 

“You’re acting like a child,” Gerri tells him, and she sounds truly pissed now. Probably upset that he’s making a scene, right in front of the building she works in. “I don’t need you to charm me or bullshit me. I’m middle aged, I know that, there’s no sense in denying that with a pile of flattery.” 

“I know how old you are,” he flails, “but that doesn’t change that you’re fucking hot as hell. Like, Jesus Christ, you’re beautiful and smart, the biggest brain in every fucking room, and you built a business that makes jerks like my dad’s shitty lawyers lose sleep at night.” 

Someone else tries to poach their cab, the driver himself waving them away now, but Gerri doesn’t look like she even notices. She’s staring at him hard, the sunset bright against her hair, her eyes blue and unblinking, like he’s some slack-jawed prick she’s about to wipe the floor with in court. 

“Look, if you like to dip yourself in jewelry and lace dresses, godawful uncomfortable heels, then you do you. But if you do that shit for men, those fucking fake tanned cumstains you normally take to things like this, I call bullshit. It’s like putting a two-dollar bow and ribbon on the hood of a Koenigsegg Trevita. You don’t fucking need it.” 

“Did you just compare me to a car?” she asks, and he throws up his hands here, floored that this is all she’s gotten from what he’s said.

“A fucking amazing car,” he defends. “Only two in existence because they were too fucking complicated to produce.” 

She turns, tugging on his hand here. Says, “come on, let’s not be late.” 

Traffic is horrible but they’ve left early enough, no real danger of them being late. Plenty of time for him to feel awkward about his outburst, the words he’s said, his leg bouncing as he looks out the window, buildings and people streaming by at various speeds. 

“Mister Hauffman died,” she says, when they’ve been stuck at an intersection for what feels like half of Roman’s life.

“Who’s that?” he asks, distracted. Thinking about his family here. That meeting that’s being set up in Turkey. The way Gerri’s back felt under his hand, the hiss of the zipper tracing her spine. 

“Our neighbor,” she tells him. “The one around the corner.” 

“That’s a shame,” he says. Immediately pulls out his phone, sending a text to his real estate broker. 

“I don’t mean to sound unfeeling, I’ve lived down the way from him for the better part of two decades, but I hate to think who’ll we be stuck with now.” 

“Probably some new money poser with a famous last name,” he volleys, turning his head here. 

It’s the first time he’s looked at her since they got in the cab and she’s staring at him in a way that makes his chest constrict. Impassive and searching, like he’s a steaming pile of evidence and she’s trying to pinpoint the lie within it.

“The building could always block such a person, the way we tried to with you.” There’s a wryness in her voice when she looks away. “But look how that turned out for us.” 

They have enough time to grab a drink once they arrive, though not if they have to stand in line for it. He pulls Gerri off to the side of the bar, waving at that one bartender until he’s been noticed, a scotch on the rocks and a martini, two olives, appearing on the side of the bar, behind a crate of glassware, Roman trading them out for a stack of bills. 

“Your way is better,” Gerri says, even as people stare at them here. Everyone’s too waspy to say anything to them, and even if they managed it, what could anyone do about them skipping the line? Nothing, that’s what.

“Pardon?” 

“Comfortable clothes. Get to know the staff so you can skip all the lines. Immediate injection of alcohol.” They blend into the crowd here, people beginning to file in, Roman feeling oddly anxious about losing track of her, a hand pressed to her lower back as they walk. “I’ve clearly been doing the philharmonic wrong all these years.” 

“Glad to hear you’ve actually been wrong about something,” he says, eyes on the crowd. Making sure no one recognizes him, forever searching for cell phones angled his way.

“There have been a few things,” she says, and he looks at her here. Watches her watching him. 

It’s a Prokofiev symphony tonight, something in the season he’s been looking forward to, and his leg bounces the second they’re in their seats. He’s excited, wrung out, really fucking worried about the future. He chews his lip, the taste of blood in his mouth when Gerri’s hand appears on his leg, stilling the motion. 

“Sorry,” he manages, but she doesn’t say anything. Just gives his leg a gentle tap and then leaves her hand there afterward, doesn’t move it again until the first time they both clap.

. . . 

“I should have eaten something,” she says at the intermission, and he’s glad she said something because it was getting really fucking hard to not laugh at her grumbling stomach. 

“Let’s grab some nibbles,” he says, eyeing their food options. “Fend off starvation until after this is over and we can grab some greasy food.” 

“Or maybe a salad,” she says, already letting herself be guided by him again, through the crowd and onto the line for snacks. 

“Um, fuck no,” he says. “I need grease, maybe the flesh of a dead animal.”

“Lovely.” She motions for him to put his wallet away when it’s time to pay for their pitiful pile of food. “You don’t need to pay for everything,” she says, when they’re moving away, back toward the bar. 

“Better to spend my money on this than hookers and blow,” he says lamely. He’s never had this conversation with anyone, not even Tabitha, and he’s not sure how to slither out of it.

“Too bad I know that you don’t touch drugs. Though prostitutes would at least explain the lack of dating since you split with that very statuesque blond.” 

“None of those either,” he admits. Pulls the same workaround at the bar, an old guy glaring at him from five feet away, Roman toasting him with his scotch, just to be a prick. “Though I often masturbate to the memory of women who’ve insulted me, so plenty to keep a therapist busy.” 

He says it to put her off, make her roll her eyes and change the subject, but she glances at him here, a question clearly forming in her mind as they sip their drinks, and he realizes that the joke was a bad call. He’s going to regret it later, if she walks through the door he’s left open.

They’re in their seats when he sees she has a speck of something on her dress, he thinks the orange innards of an olive, and he picks it off because it’s only on her shoulder, a safe distance from her chest. She shifts uncomfortably here, which is unlike her, but then he sees that woman beside them is staring at them and he thinks it’s the same one who always glares at him for fidgeting, and fuck her very much. 

“I’m such a messy eater,” he says to the woman, a shit eating grin on his face when she pales, turning away from them. He’d keep going but Gerri’s hand moves back to his leg, her nails digging in here.

“That’s enough that,” she warns, eyes forward. 

“Rude stare-fucking-bear,” Roman mutters, sees Gerri’s lip twitch at that. A job well done.

. . .

They pick up a pizza on the way home, the grease laden cardboard propped on Roman’s lap, and he smirks when Gerri’s fingers steal into the box, pulling out a piece of pepperoni. 

“Finger fucking a man’s dinner right in front of him,” he complains. “The gall of this lady.”

He hears the cab driver chuckle at that, Roman expecting Gerri to be annoyed that he’s being ridiculous when they have an audience, but apparently the last martini has put her in a good mood because she presses her lips together here. Says, “the pepperoni had no complaints.”

Neither does he, certainly isn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth given how their outing started. 

“I’m sorry I was unkind earlier,” she says in the lobby. There’s a wait for the elevator, lots of people moving about on a weekend night. 

“I know I sound like an idiot half the time,” he says, has always had trouble expressing himself in ways that other people will understand. “But I rarely bullshit you. Only when I’m joking around, deliberately being a fuckhead.”

“I know that,” she says, when the elevator pops open, a huddle of people spilling out, clearly drunk. “I do.”

She leads them to her apartment instead of his, Roman not complaining at this. The dog’s with the pet sitter overnight, probably participating in some bullshit hipster bash in Brooklyn right now, and the idea of his apartment doesn’t appeal. Not when he can fritter away the time at her place, stay so long she has to kick him out.

“You wanna tell me about the family stuff now?” she asks, dropping her purse on a chair, her shoes kicked off one by one. 

He doesn’t really, they’ve been having such a nice time, but at some point it becomes a secret and he doesn’t want that.

“Pop asked me to fly to Turkey,” he says, floating over to her bar. He picks up a couple bottles and then puts them down, changing the order. But then he realizes that might bother her, switching them back. “Take a little meeting for Waystar.”

“This isn’t about the cruise mess, right?”she asks, looking worried as she opens up the pizza box he discarded on the kitchen counter. “Because that would be a mistake to get involved in.”

He shakes his head. Plucks a flower from her arrangement on a side table and twirls it in his fingers. 

“No, this isn’t about that. Bigger, maybe. Money stuff.” He can’t say more really, knows she won’t push, and there’s a comfort in that. A certain kind of freedom. 

“Do me a favor and talk to your own lawyer,” she says. “I know you’re smart enough to know that, but I’m going to say it anyway. Don’t take legal advice from guys your dad’s been bending over tables for the last thirty years, hmm?” 

She’s right, he was already going to corral his legal team, but he doesn’t mind her advice, likes the way she drifts toward crudeness when it comes to business. He realizes here that she probably would have done well at Waystar. Feels oddly glad that she never picked up the phone whenever they called her.

“Are you going to come eat or are you just going to stand over there, diddling your little flower?” 

“And here I thought I’d tricked you into a good mood,” he says, voice light as he joins her at the counter. There’s a formal dining room he can see from here, but the barstools pulled up to the kitchen counter appeal more.

“This _is_ a good mood,” she responds, one eyebrow cocked. “Hard to believe, I know.” 

“I’m lucky to get your time,” he says, not feeling fond of the joke anymore. “I was just thinking earlier, walking through your fucking fortress of a law firm, that you’re really slumming it by spending time with me.”

“A little,” she says, and he laughs at that, taking his plate from her. “But you make for great entertainment.”

“True,” he agrees. 

“And you know to douse me with food and alcohol.”

“Also true.”

“And you flatter me endlessly when I’m being a silly old woman.” 

“Uh, you’re not fucking old,” he says, swallowing the massive bite of pizza he’s just taken. “We’ve already established it’s not bullshit flattery, and as to you being a woman, probably, but I need to peek under the hood first.”

“Oh!” she says, sounding scandalized, and he fist pumps, pleased with himself that he’s managed to surprise her. “That reminds me. . .”

“Uh huh,” he says, mouth full of pizza again. This place is really good, maybe better than the place he used to go for slices, back when he was drunk all the time and needed some protein and grease to settle him. He’ll have to take a picture of the box so he’ll have the name of it saved.

“You said something earlier about masturbating to the memory of women who’ve insulted you.” 

She’s staring at him now, tracking the way he lifts his pizza back to his mouth here, an obvious ploy to buy himself time, come up with something to say.

“Did I?” he asks lamely. “Don’t recall.”

“I’m very good at cross examinations,” she warns him.

“Make a lot of people cry, do you?” 

“I don’t want them to cry,” she tilts her head. “Then juries feel bad for them. What I want is to trip them up, make them angry and unlikable. Better yet, make them contradict themselves. It’s far easier with men than women.”

“I have no doubt,” he says. “Aren’t you going to eat more than that one slice? This shit is fucking good.”

“I need to rein it in more,” she shakes her head. “I can’t keep it eating like I have your metabolism.” 

Her loss, he thinks, but now it feels rude to keep shoving pizza in his mouth, so he bypasses the third slice he stills wants, closing the box. 

“Do you have any music in this place?” he asks, getting up. 

Her living room looks like something out of a nice hotel, everything in order, fresh flowers everywhere, but not a lot of personal touches other than art and a few family photos he had to work to spot. There’s a nice enough sound system and a record player beside it, an alphabetized box of records on the adjoining cabinet. 

“What on earth are you doing?” she asks, Roman flipping through her records. 

“Looking for some danceable music.” He says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. 

“I don’t think I have any dancing in me,” she says. “It’s been a long day. Maybe just a few cocktails before I kick you out.” 

“No, no,” he waves her off. He’s better at listening than he used to be, but he knows he still has his moments. Bad at not getting his way, still an overgrown child with a bank account and a grownup’s apartment. “Something easy. Not gonna make you pop ‘n lock it or anything.” 

“Pop and what?” she says, coming over to where he is and pushing him out of the way. “For heaven’s sake, you’ve got these all out of order now.”

“Then you find something,” he argues, his chin over her shoulder while she searches. Watches her pull out something that looks like jazz. 

“It’s ten o’clock at night,” she grumbles, sounding annoyed now. “How are you this fucking hyper?” 

“Must be the good company,” he drawls, the first scratch of the record giving way to music, and then he’s tugging her by the hand. 

“Don’t think you’ve weaseled out of my question,” she says, half the song gone, his hands on her hips. 

“What question?” he says, pulling her closer. It’s a distraction ploy that backfires, her hair brushing against his neck now, and he remembers the last time they did this, in that crowded bar, and he marvels that he didn’t find it torture then. 

“I seem to recall insulting you several times, when we first met.”

Her hands are behind his neck now, have been slowly sliding along his shoulders for a while, and he feels his face burn hot, like five sake bombs banged out in a row. 

“You still insult me,” he manages, his voice a little pitched. “I deserve a lot of insults.”

“Does that mean I made the montage?” 

Her voice is low, breathy, and her nails are scraping against his neck now, her breasts grazing against them every few beats as they sway. He’s imagined a lot of these scenarios when he’s in bed at night, sometimes in the shower, his hand finding the pace he needs. He used to only picture sex, maybe her spread out on a bed, but more and more it’s things exactly like this, scenarios that start slow, end up with her lying flat across his kitchen counter, his mouth pressed between her legs. 

“I plead the fifth,” he says, voice catching, and she pulls back a little here, looking him in the eye, a dark expression on her face as her lips twist into something resembling a smile.

“That’s not how the law works,” she explains, and she’s using her you’re-such-an-idiot voice that he only hears when she’s on the phone, some minion bugging her with a dumb fucking question, interrupting her dinner, and shit, he’s fucking hard now, her body still pressing against him, her nails still sharp on his neck. “Nothing illegal about picturing your neighbor naked.” 

She shifts against him, her midsection catching against his erection, and he feels himself groan. He’s trying to gather his thoughts, find some words to walk this all back, but then she’s kissing him, her tongue in his mouth, and he’s never cared for this part much before, only ever went through the motions, but he certainly likes it now, his own tongue skimming her teeth as she makes a sound in the back of her throat. 

She’s shuffling them backwards, moving them somewhere, but Roman stalls them, his mouth on her neck, a hand fitting to her breast as she throws her head back. 

“Roman,” she pleads, and it’s his name that makes him come back to himself, makes him yank his hand away, his body jerking back like he’s been punched. 

“Wait,” he says, breathing hard, all the blood diverted away from his tiny fucking brain. “Wait, just wait.” 

“Are you okay?” she asks, touching his chest, but he only pulls further away. Shakes his head. 

“We can’t do this,” he says. “I’ll fuck it up.” 

“You were doing pretty well so far,” she says, sounding incredulous. 

“I don’t mean the sex,” he says, “I mean us. This. The sex will fuck it up, it’s what I do. Blow things up. Patron saint of explosions, remember?” 

“I said that when I didn’t know you,” she says, sounding defensive now. “Are you really still upset about that?”

“I wasn’t even angry then, when you said it,” he hurriedly explains, running a hand through his damp hair. “You were right. It’s what I do. I explode stuff. Things. Relationships. You fucking name it.” 

“I’m very confused about what it is you want here,” she tells him now, an edge to her voice that’s unpleasant, nothing he wants to ever hear again. “You want to be pals, dinner fucking buddies, that’s fine. I mean, I’m nearly twenty years older than you. But you keep muddying the waters - staring at my ass, flirting. I ignored it when I thought it was all a part of your charm, but it never went away, and then - _fucking hell._ ” She takes a long breath here, his eyes tracking her throat as she swallows, and he knows that she sees it. She sees everything, always. “I don’t typically keep people as friends who stare at my mouth or look like they might come in their parents after they’ve zipped up my dress.” 

“I thought I was being subtle,” he says, shifting his weight against the counter now. Doesn’t feel capable of supporting his own body.

“You were not,” she says. “Not in the slightest”

“I really want to fuck you,” Roman admits, not caring how that sounds because it doesn’t matter, not anymore, not if she already knows. “But I want you as my friend, I want to actually hang onto you, and that’s to say nothing of your stupid fucking five date rule.”

“Do not insult me,” she warns him, “not in my own home, after you’ve been jerking me around all night.”

“I’m not,” he says, hands flailing here. He can never find the right words, can never get things out clearly, the way they are in his head, and that’s why he spent so many years hiding behind dick jokes and horrible, cowardly insults. “There isn’t anything that I’ve said to you that I don’t fucking mean! I just don’t want to lose you, okay? You’re too important and clearly neither of us are Obi Wan Kenobi’s when it comes to relationships. So yeah, I’d really like to eat you out until you scream, but if it’s between that and having breakfast and talking about bullshit with you, I choose the fucking breakfast!” 

“I’m going to feel grateful here that you never picked up your brother’s coke habit,” she sighs, moving past him. “Can only imagine how many more words that mouth of yours would rattle out if this is your fucking baseline.” 

That stings, like a slap to the face, and it must show because her face falls here, some of the anger smoothing away as she stands still now, staring at him from the middle of her kitchen. 

“Fuck,” she says, and closes her eyes. “Roman, I’m sorry. That wasn’t - I’m sorry, I don’t mean that.”

“It’s okay,” he says. He’s forgiven his family for worse. Much, much worse. For years. 

“It isn’t okay,” she says. “And I don’t have to imagine how I’d feel about a man who acted the way I’m acting now, after I’ve rejected him.”

“I’m not fucking rejecting you,” he says, upset again here. Doesn’t know what he can say to make himself more clear. 

“No more,” she says, waving him off. “I’m not angry at you… In ten more minutes, I won’t be angry with you, just ashamed and a little embarrassed, but I need a cessation of words here.” 

“Do… Do you want me to leave?” he asks her. Watches as she opens the pizza box, picking up a cold piece and folding it in half. 

“If that’s what you want,” she says. “Though I’d prefer that you make me a very large martini. Keep me company while I put some food on these feelings.”

“I can do all of that,” he pronounces, already getting up. 

He doesn’t kiss her on the cheek half an hour later, when he goes to leave. He almost does but then he remembers what she said earlier about him muddying the waters, stopping himself just in time.

He tilts his head, making a raspberry sound before he asks, “are we okay?”

“I think so,” she says. “And I understand what you were saying. Mostly.” 

He wants to push on that last part, try to fix whatever he didn’t get right, but he decides to leave it be. Doesn’t want to court her anger anymore, isn’t so stupid as to miss that the bluster was covering some hurt. 

“Breakfast on Sunday if you’re up to it,” he says, aiming for casual. Light. 

“Night,” she smiles without agreeing. Gives him a little wave before he closes the door behind himself. 

The twenty-foot walk back to his own door feels longer than usual and his apartment is dark and silent, just as he left it. 

. . . 


	6. Chapter 6

He doesn’t hear from Gerri at all on Saturday, his phone never buzzing with a complaint about a client or a restaurant review she found particularly pedantic, and he tries to push himself through the day, not dwell in his fear of the silence. 

Albert comes back from the dog sitter and they go on a trip to the farmer’s market, Roman buying organic produce that his cleaning service will inevitably have to throw out in five to eight days, paparazzi taking pictures of him picking up dog shit after Albert decides to take a massive dump. Then it’s the gym and after that therapy because, fortuitously enough, he had an appointment on the calendar already. He mostly talks himself in circles for an hour, feels like he gets nowhere, but he’s reminded that he has a bad habit of not letting other people process things, often forcing the shoe to drop so he doesn’t have to anticipate it anymore, and he tries to hold onto that thought the rest of the day. Not push it away when he feels itchy, desperate to text Gerri and force some kind of reaction.

Shiv texts him a link to a society page that afternoon, which is weird because none of them pay attention to that shit, not even when they’re at their most self-destructive, and he’s confused at first, can’t figure out why when he first scans the page. But then he sees a cluster of pictures from the philharmonic, swearing under his breath when he scrolls down to the picture of him and Gerri, the caption under it reading,  _ Roman Roy and companion _ . 

It’s a shitty picture, he can barely make out his own face, but Gerri’s smiling as she looks at him, holding her martini, and he closes out of the article a minute later, doesn’t want to torture himself with that anymore than necessary. 

_ Companion? _ Kendall texts him an hour later, Roman throwing his hands in the air when he sees the message. 

_ It really wasn’t a date _ , he texts to both Ken and Shiv, not willing to do this more than once. Adds, knowing that Shiv will keep poking away at him,  _ Sore subject. Please leave it. _

_ Sorry bro _ , Kendall replies, followed shortly by a turd emoji from Shiv. 

He’s set up a meeting with his lawyers on Monday to talk about Turkey, but more and more he feels like he needs to talk to his siblings about this in person, make sure their dad can’t pull any of his usual shit to pit them against each other, just because he’s coming back to do this one stupid thing. 

_ Brunch? _ Shiv suggests, after he floats the idea of a huddle.

He doesn’t want to say yes, brunch is his usual thing with Gerri and he’s been holding out hope for that, but it’s eight o’clock now and he hasn’t heard a peep from her, not even a salty comment about that picture in the society page, and he knows better than to think he’ll see her tomorrow for boozy coffee and idle chat. 

_ Brunch works _ , Kendall texts back.  _ Where and when? _

_ My place,  _ Roman tells them.  _ Eleven o’clock _ . __

He feels restless after that, worried for the week ahead, but more than that, upset about Gerri. Maybe he had a mistake, a bad call, but there’s no way to undo it now. That doesn’t stop him from thinking of all things he could have said differently, maybe explained better, while he’s in the shower, hot water pouring over his head. 

He checks his phone when he gets out, towel around his waist, water dripping on his bedroom floor, but there’s still nothing from her and he gives up here. Pops two sleeping pills before he dries off and then promptly puts himself to bed. 

. . . 

“Fuck, you made this too spicy,” Shiv complains, shoving her Bloody Mary back at him. 

“It’s supposed to be spicy,” Roman argues. “It’s not plain tomato juice, Siobhan.” 

The food is on the way, his usual order but doubled this time, and he and Kendall bet each other about how many waffles they can eat while Shiv continues to bitch about his bartending. 

Kendall’s only drinking coffee, which Roman notes but doesn’t comment on, none of the shitty jokes he would have made two years ago. He pulls out Tabitha’s old French press because he figures Ken will appreciate that kind of thing, probably having some elaborate essay to give about coffee chemistry or whatever the fuck. 

“Now that’s too much tomato juice,” Shiv bitches, and Roman gives the fuck up. 

“Godspeed to you then,” he says, handing her the vodka bottle. “You’re on your goddamn own.” 

It’s tempting to wait until the food comes to get down to business, but Roman thinks if this goes poorly the food might make for a good distraction. He opens things up by telling them about what their dad said on the stairs, all that ‘we’ bullshit. 

“So he snaps his fingers and you’re just going to jump?” Shiv asks, pulling a face. 

“No,” Roman stops her, already feeling defensive. “No, I’m just doing this one thing and then I’m back out.” 

“Oh yeah?” she says. “Doggy does a trick and then he can go back to his crate.” 

“Low fucking blow,” Roman warns her. “I’m trying to be honest with you guys here. Like, if you don’t want me doing this, I won’t go. Case closed.”

“I’m in no position to throw stones,” Ken hedges. 

“No,” Roman says, “you aren’t.” 

“But if I were going to-” 

“Oh my God, you piece of shit.” 

“No, but dude, if I was going to-”

“Asshole! Dickless asshole!”

“I would just say that you’ve been telling us for a year how much better off you are without dad running your life, and here you are, trying to get back in.”

“But I don’t want in,” Roman argues back, glaring at Kendall, and now he can hear the dog getting up, coming into the kitchen because of all the shouting. “That’s the whole thing. Dad’s saying if we don’t go private then Waystar might be truly fucked from the level of oversight currently involved, and maybe on a primal level it’s tempting to watch ye old colosseum burn, but it isn’t just my inheritance, it’s yours. And Connor’s, I guess, but who the fuck cares about him.” 

“Was that a line,” Shiv interrupts, “when you said if we didn’t want you to do this, then you wouldn’t go? Because it sounded like a line.” 

“It did in fact sound like a line,” Ken agrees. 

Some fucking older brother he is.

“It’s not,” Roman promises, making manic gestures in the air. “Seriously, let’s take a vote on it over fucking waffles. Does Roman fly his ass out to Asia, court some billionaire dark money from a guy who probably kills human rights activists for shits and giggles, show of fucking hands!” 

“Not really sellin’ it,” Shiv says. Dumps about three more shots into the Bloody Mary she’s managed to drink down. 

“Well I don’t fucking know,” Roman says, slumping down in a chair. “But like, the three of us are just now in a place when we can get together and talk normally, and I don’t want to fuck that.”

“You mean you want us to talk normally?” Shiv says, making a weird cartoon voice. 

“Okay,” Roman sighs, Kendall starting to nod and laugh already.

“Talk about the big shit?” Ken says, his voice similarly deranged, and Roman hops up when the buzzer sounds, their food finally arriving. 

“How am I the mature one here?” 

His siblings continue laughing their asses off as he buzzes the delivery person up, grabs their food from her a few minutes later, throwing a wave over his shoulder because it’s the same one who almost always drops off the food from Buvette. 

“Wow, Roman Roy conversing with regular people,” Shiv snarks. “Maybe you can take that folksy charm on the road, run for office.”

“Well I sure as fuck wouldn’t hire you as a campaign manager.” He stops, dropping the bags of food heavily on the table. “Not unless I wanted to end up on TV, holding my severed dick in my hand.” 

Kendall laughs at this and Shiv shoves him. They’re both still bickering by the time Roman’s gotten out the plates and silverware, an unpleasant feeling in his stomach at doing this, like a phantom pain, but he looks at his siblings and reminds himself to be grateful for what’s in front of him. No sense in fucking up one more thing. 

“Let me at those waffles, you perverts,” Roman shouts, Kendall snatching an entire box up for himself. “Bastard. Greedy fucking bastard.” 

There’s a knock at the door, Shiv getting up to open it, already making a joke about how Roman probably didn’t tip the delivery person enough. 

“Oh, sorry,” Roman hears Gerri say. Looks up to see her frozen in place where Shiv’s thrown open the door. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.” 

“No interruption,” Shiv says, cocking her head with that demonic smile Roman dreads. “Any friend of Roman’s is a friend of ours, right Ken?” 

Roman doesn’t not know what to do here. He’s happy to see her but he has no idea what she came over to say. He isn’t going to subject her to a brunch with his siblings if she’s here to tell him to take a piss, probably wouldn’t even under the best of conditions. 

“Um, I think that kind of attitude is what led to Kendall stealing two of my girlfriends,” Roman says, settling for the easy joke. “Gerri, these are my siblings, Thing One and Thing Two. Assholes, this is my friend Gerri.”

“Nice to meet you, Gerri,” Shiv says primly, like butter wouldn’t melt in her goblin mouth.

“Ditto. But for the record it was only one girl.” Ken holds up an index finger here, as if Gerri can’t fucking count to one. “When he was ten, and she was twelve, so I still contend that she was going to be way too much car for him to handle anyway.” 

Gerri’s eyebrows shoot up here, Shiv moving away, and Roman can see now that she’s holding some dry cleaning; the suit he left in her office the other night. He’s sure Shiv already clocked it and he can see Ken watching now as Albert goes up to Gerri, tail wagging, after he’s snubbed everyone else for an hour. 

“You really are welcome to join us,” Kendall says, probably extending an olive branch to diffuse the tension building in the room.

“I’d hate to intrude,” Gerri says, clearing stalling, searching Roman’s face for some sign of what to do. 

“It’ll only be worse if you leave,” Roman levels with her. Tries to reassure her with a smile. “They already saw the picture. Shiv will just go full Hannibal Lecter if you turn tail and run.” 

“Rude,” Shiv laughs, but Gerri’s already coming in, hanging his dry cleaning on a doorway, the dog fast on her heels. “And not true at all.” 

“It’s kind of true,” Kendall says, already digging into his waffles. 

“Wow,” Shiv says. “You have no loyalty to either of us, do you?” 

“I have loyalty to these waffles,” Ken says. “Gonna draw up a prenup and marry them.” 

“Is that a Bloody Mary?” Gerri demands, pointing at Shiv’s drink as she sweeps into the kitchen. 

“Yeah, but Roman made it and it’s shit,” Shiv says. Comes around the table, sizing up the food. 

“Well that tracks,” Gerri sighs, and both of his siblings snicker. 

“Nice,” Roman nods, smirking here. “Really nice.” He gets up out of his chair though, going into the kitchen to pour her a coffee and a Bloody Mary. “If you don’t like it, I can always spike your coffee,” he says, presenting both to her when she’s seated, a plate in front of her. 

“So what have I missed?” Gerri asks, not missing a beat. “Catch me up on all the Roy family festivities.” 

“Uh, Kendall and Roman pledged a waffle eating contest to the death,” Shiv says. “Which will probably end in one of them hurling off the balcony.” 

“So a typical morning for one Romulus Roy,” Gerri pronounces, cutting her waffles into neat slices. “Do go on.” 

“Shiv can’t be my campaign manager if I run for office because she’s a treacherous bitch.”

“That’s actually what makes me  _ good _ at that job,” Shiv shoots back, a fork pointed at Roman’s chest.

“Roman tried to be vulnerable with us and we mocked him,” Ken adds, passing Gerri more food. She hesitates at this, locking eyes with Roman across the table here, a beat passing between them as her spoon hovers over an open container. 

“Well,” she replies eventually, “we’re often hardest on the ones we care about, aren’t we?”

The conversation moves on, Kendall mentioning something that one of his kids is doing, and Roman gets up out of his chair again, bringing Gerri the container of fruit that no one’s passed her yet. 

“My drink is good,” she says, touching his arm. “Thank you.”

“Sure,” he says. Doesn’t linger by her chair. 

“Wait a minute,” Shiv says, sitting up higher. “We’ve already met. At that benefit the other year, right? You gave that great speech introducing the Senator.” 

“I always give the same speech,” Gerri says, a slight shrug here. “Bank on half the room being hammered and other half counting the minutes until they can sneak off to the bar.” 

Everyone laughs at that, Gerri smiling politely, and sometime later Kendall’s making noises about heading out. 

“I have the kids tonight,” Ken explains. “Promised them a trip to the park this afternoon.” 

“Don’t come back with fleas after we just got you dipped,” Roman tells him, already moving in for a hug. “Let’s talk about that other thing tomorrow.”

“Nah,” Kendall says, clapping his back. “You’ve already got my vote.” 

“Mine too,” Shiv adds, clearly looking around for the purse she left on the coffee table. 

“You don’t have to decide today,” Roman says, getting up and grabbing her purse. Hands it over with a ridiculous karate chop. “Really, take some time.” 

“Not necessary,” Shiv says. “You should go, be the conquering hero. Bring us back pistachio baklava from that one place mom took us to when I was twelve.” 

“Oh yeah,” Roman smiles. “I remember that place. That place was fucking awesome, they let me drink booze. I got sick all over the Persian carpets in the shop next door.” 

“Uh, I got blamed for that,” Kendalls says here, texting someone. Probably his driver. 

“Let’s go,” Shiv tells him, pulling on Kendall’s arm. “Let these two get up to whatever it is they allegedly don’t get up to.” 

“Nothing like that,” Roman calls, still not exactly a lie. “Though sometimes I get her wine drunk and she lets me grind against her in bars.” 

“Even as a joke,” Gerri sighs, sipping her coffee with feigned disdain, “that is a stomach turning thought.” 

Shiv smirks at that, Kendall out the door behind her, and then it’s just the two of them, staring at each other over a table of picked over food. 

“Sorry,” Roman offers. “Didn’t mean to enare you in a Roy family hoedown.”

“They’re not what I expected,” she admits. Which probably means she didn’t hate them in under a minute.

“It’s better, away from our dad.” He makes a weird, dismissive motion with his hand. “You get us around him, everything goes to shit. But the bastard can’t live forever, so. . .” 

“Will you spike this coffee?” she asks him, and he nods. Tops it off with coffee that’s still hot and a generous shot of whiskey before he sits back down, this time in the seat right next to her. 

“I am sorry,” he says. “About the other night.”

“I’m not sure you need to be,” she squints, clutching her cup here. “I’d talked myself into texting you something inconsequential yesterday, a thing about an underling who’s a useless fucking idiot, but then an old law school friend saw that society page thing and I had to do some awkward dancing.” 

“Yeah,” he says. “That was … unpleasant. But it's a good picture of you, even if I look like some milk drinking pervert.” 

She smiles at that, a little anyway. More than the fake, polite smiles she doled out to his siblings earlier. 

“I grew up with a little money,” she says here. “But nothing like your family and that level of scrutiny. It must have been incredibly hard to have so little privacy right from the start.” 

“I didn’t really know anything else,” Roman scratches his head. “None of us kids did. But then Ken started getting into the drugs, all these really shitty people around him all the time, just taking and fucking taking, and that was… eye opening. I pretty much stopped trusting people after that.” He stops, making a farting noise. “It was a long time ago, I guess you get over it.” 

He starts clearing the boxes and plates up, Gerri moving to help him after a minute. 

“You don’t have to do that,” he says. 

“No,” she agrees. “But I’m going to.” 

The dishes are loaded, the table wiped down, when she says something about needing to shove off, get things done. 

“Nightmare of a week ahead of me,” she says. “But thanks for brunch.” 

“Anytime,” he says. Doesn’t move from where he’s leaned against the table, the dog coming over to sniff his hands. 

“Okay,” she says, sounding weird, uncomfortable maybe. “For the record, you’re still allowed to kiss my cheek when we say goodbye.” 

“I wanted to the other night,” he says, can’t help that it’s coming out whiny. “But you said the thing about muddying the waters or whatever the fuck,and I was trying to like, not be a total asshole.” 

“I figured,” she says. “At least later, when I thought about it. But the thing is… I’ve always thought that part was sweet. Right from the start of you doing it, I never thought it anything but sweet.” 

He doesn’t make her wait. Walks right over to where she’s standing by the door, places his hands lightly on her arms and presses a kiss to her left cheek. 

“Wait,” he says, when she starts to pull away, “I’m still in debt from the last time.” He kisses her right one after that, no funny business, just a chaste peck before he pulls away. 

She stares at him here, deciding something maybe, and he’s always felt ungodly uncomfortable when she does this, squirming out of his skin, but he has nothing left to hide from her anymore and there’s a relief that comes with that. 

“You are my most favorite human,” he tells her, not playing it up for laughs, and she smiles at him softly here. Nods her head once. 

“Bye,” she says. “Good luck on your trip, if I don’t see you.” 

. . . 

He already knew that his sister married a walking, talking fart noise, but seeing it play out on international news is still a spectacle, a diarrhea inducing car crash that Roman knows he shouldn’t laugh at, but goddamn, that middle state asshole really is an idiot.

_ This is fascinating,  _ Gerri texts him.  _ I’ve never seen someone taking a shit on live TV before.  _ And then,  _ Your sister must be so proud _ . 

Roman’s with Frank, watching the congressional hearings on an iPad, and apparently Gerri’s watching it too. 

_ Maybe Shiv will divorce him after this _ , he texts her back, but then he’s pulled into something with Karl and Laird, his day fills up, ends, starts again. And then he’s taken hostage. 

“If you had to kill one of them,” Roman says to Frank, thumb pointed over his shoulder at Laird and Karl, “which one would it be?”

Frank looks over, probably making sure the two spineless wonders can’t hear them, but Roman can still hear Laird complaining about his position being shaky and he doubts they’d even notice if someone were handing out two-for-one blow jobs. 

“Karl,” Frank says solemnly. 

“Wow, that’s pretty cold. You two worked together since what, back when you audited the fucking ark.”

“He cheats at golf,” Frank says. “Acts like I can’t see him moving the ball with his shoe when we get to the green.”

“Shady bastard.” 

“And somehow, miraculously,” Frank continues, obviously working up to a real foment now, “I always ended up paying the tab when we did drinks at the clubhouse afterward.”

“You didn’t just put it on the company card?” 

“Well yeah,” Frank says. “But still. Principle.” They both chuckle at that. “Look, kiddo, I know this looks bad. But I think this is only a little choreography. Political theater with guns.”

“I’m not a kid,” Roman says. Gets down on the floor and puts his legs up against the wall. “And yeah, I already clocked that this is only some totalitarian beauty pageant.” He goes to reach for his phone in his pocket, remembering here that they don’t have them anymore. Feels angry at himself that he didn’t fire off a text to Gerri before all this bullshit started today. “Okay… so fuck, marry, kill: the executive floor.”

Roman still gets a chance to pitch, albeit to another dude, but none of it feels right and he hates that he went through all this bullshit only to come back empty handed. 

“That was useless,” Roman grumbles later, when they’re out to lunch with gaggle of fucking ambassadors, spineless diplomats who bandy about mealy mouthed phrases like ‘concern’ and ‘politically sensitive’. 

“You don’t think that guy was for real?” Franks asks him, and Roman pulls a face, making a crude motion. “Hey, just asking.” 

“You coming over to Croatia?” Roman asks. Reaches over to Frank’s plate, stealing his slice of bread just to fuck with him more. 

“Well, uh, I thought it was more of a family affair and I don’t want to-”

“I’m kidding,” Roman guffaws. Saves Frank from finishing the lame excuse. “It’s gonna be a death cruise. I’m only going to deliver the bad news, then I’m fucking right off home. But dad’s probably gonna be pissed if you never show your face.”

Frank cringes, doing that weird thing with his eyebrows when he says, “Your dad’s always pissed. But he’s not the one I owed a debt to.” 

Roman lets that hang, doesn’t bury it under a pile of jokes and shitty comments. 

_ Okay _ , Gerri texts him, when he’s waiting on the helipad for his ride to the boat.  _ Associated Press is using the word ‘hostages’, which I find strangely at odds with your description of events.  _

Shit. He’s been trying not to worry people, not when it’s over now and they were in a fucking Four Season’s for Christ’s sake. 

_ I’m fine _ , he promises.  _ Off to the family boat now. Play a little Russian Roulette: Croatian party edition.  _

He has a million missed calls, emails, and texts to go through on the ride over, mostly deleting shit. He’s halfway down in his text messages when he gets to the one from Tabitha and it feels like the helicopter drops a hundred feet, his stomach doing that lurching thing.

_ Are you okay? _

He spent months wanting something like this from her, some kind of sign that she won’t hate him until the day she dies, and it’s nice to have now, but he mostly feels horrible all over again. A whole fucking year of only going through empty motions and making her promises he could never keep, only to blame her when she wouldn’t smile around the bullshit sandwich he’d offered her. 

_ Safe and sound _ , he texts her back.  _ Thanks for checking in, hope you’re well. _

He loses reception after that, the water stretching out, blue and bright below him. When he spots the ship it’s only shadow, a dark outline growing in the distance. 

. . . 


	7. Chapter 7

Tom makes some annoying as shit joke when Roman gets to the boat, something that doesn’t even warrant a response because it’s the kind of egg his brother-in-law habitually lays as he clucks around family gatherings, but Roman’s nerves feel raw and he hasn’t slept well in days. 

“Surprised you can still talk. On TV it looked like those Senators’ dicks were so deep in your ass they might come out the other side.”

Tom recoils at that and Shiv glares, but Roman doesn’t fucking care. He just wasted days of his life trying to get some Turkish dude to spread his legs and it wasn’t even fucking real, one more thing in the meaningless parade of bullshit Logan’s had him do. 

“He was kidding,” Shiv hisses, after Tom’s scampered away, and Roman can’t bring himself to be sorry. 

“I wasn’t,” he says. Pulls the box of pistachio baklava out of his bag and tosses it at her before he walks away. He had a whole case of it sent to her home too, but that was days ago, when he was feeling a tad more familial. He doesn’t regret the case of it he ordered for Gerri though, wishes the reception wasn’t so spotty because he’d love to send her some snide jokes about his family, probably get a few back in reply. 

There’s no sign of their dad, apparently he isn’t even aboard yet, and Roman bristles at this because he just wants to go home to his dog and his own bed, not be trapped for another day on this floating monstrosity, his idiot cousin bitching to Shiv’s husband about the quality of the rosé that’s floating around. He’d like to talk to Kendall alone but Naomi is his brother’s shadow, beside him everywhere he goes, and he doesn't know what to make of that because he has some pretty unkind thoughts there. She seems fine, smart enough, but he doesn’t like that Ken always has a drink in his hand whenever she’s around. He’s seen enough people who encourage Kendall’s intermittent shitshow and they’re all interchangeable in the end. He doubts the famous last name on this one will make much of a difference. 

“You alright?” Shiv asks when she finds him stretched out on a couch later, a beer in his hand. 

“Peachy.”

“No,” she says. “I'm trying to do the thing you wanted. Feelings and real shit.” He can see now that the napkin in her hand has a piece of baklava on it and he softens here, some of the anger fading away. “You alright?” 

“It wasn’t all that scary,” he shrugs. “I mean, a little. Guns and shit. But that money isn’t real, it’s bullshit, and now I get to be the one to tell father dearest, so.” 

He can see Tom hovering, straining to hear them maybe, but Shiv pointedly ignores him, not turning to catch his eye, and Roman sees the way he skulks away. 

He isn’t sure how they work as a couple, Shiv’s hard edges always slicing into Tom’s soft, doughy sides, but maybe it isn’t for him to know. Gerri is the closest thing he’s ever had to a best friend and sometimes they’re nothing but hard edges catching against each other, so maybe it isn’t logical. Maybe none of it has to make sense.

“I’m sorry I was mean to your husband,” he offers and he gets a little smile for that, her face still tucked under her enormous sun hat. 

“I’m sorry dad’s gonna cut your dick off.” 

And there’s nothing to say to that, no funny joke to make, so they just sit side by side for a while, people killing time around them in ridiculous ways while they all wait for the angel of death to appear on the horizon. 

_I think I need a vacation_ , he texts Gerri in the five-minute window when he actually has two bars of service. _Maybe someplace cold. No more of this sunshine and swimwear bullshit_. 

He doesn’t expect a response, can’t even do the time change math in his head right now, but he still checks his phone repeatedly until they drift out of service again, and then the helicopter appears in the distance, the sound getting louder as it hovers, touches down. 

“Romulus,” his dad says gravely. “Karl. Laird. Business.” 

Karl and Laird do the synchronized, mutual fellating that Roman expects, a few praises thrown his way for apparently aiming his dick straight and not crapping himself in front of Zeynal, but it’s all a smoke screen and his fingers tap against his leg the whole time those two are busy spouting nonsense they don’t even believe. 

“That dude is not showing up,” he tells his dad, over the protests of Karl and Laird. “I don’t care what words came out of his mouth, we can’t count on this or we’re going to be out on a fucking ledge with no bucket to shit in.” 

“Is that what Frank thinks?” his dad asks, and Roman knew this was going to go poorly but like, he had hope. He really did. 

“No, that’s what your youngest son thinks.” His leg is bouncing now, his dad’s glare on him, and it’s like every time he fucked up as a kid, each and every holiday where he went home from military school after some fascist teacher complained about his shoddy work or his sneaking out. As if anyone cared about that. Like anyone ever gave a single flying fuck about what he ever did. “Shiv got the ambition. Kendall got the problem solving skills. But I got your nose for bullshit, and I’m telling you right now - this is bullshit.” 

“Jamie, Karl,” his dad motions with his head, and Roman relaxes a fraction here, the two stuffed shirts being dismissed, but then they’re gone and his dad gets that one look that makes Roman’s legs fucking shake. His dad’s belt about to come off, maybe a backhand to the face, his mother always making disapproving sounds but then telling Roman to maybe not cry so much afterward because no one likes a hysteric. 

“I wish that money was real,” Roman promises, his voice pitching high in a way that makes him sound pathetic. So fucking weak and pathetic. “I do and I really tried.”

“If I had fucking nickel for ever time you really tried,” his dad shakes his head. “I knew you’d only waste my time. What have you even done in the last year? Pissing away my money. Showing up around town with that Kellman cunt.” 

“What?” Roman recoils as if anticipating a slap. “ What does that have to do with anything?”

“That bitch had her little harpoon aimed at me last year,” his dad thunders. “And don’t pretend you didn’t fucking know it. All that liberal bullshit about those poor abused bitches, woe is them. It’s only ever about money, one more lazy person trying to get fat off of me.”

“Dad-” 

“Get out of my sight!” his dad shouts. “Disloyal little Oedipal prick!”

He doesn’t have to be told twice, though he does stop once to puke off the side of the boat on the way back to his cabin. 

He hitches a ride to shore with Naomi, two bodies his dad’s unceremoniously dumped in the ocean like hookers off a Brightstar cruise, and Kendall looks so gutted by them both of leaving that Roman has to look away for a minute. 

“Please,” Ken says, and Roman doesn’t know which of them he’s talking to, can’t bear to see the pain on his brother’s face anymore because he knows it’s going to inevitably get smothered under booze and a pile of drugs. 

“Take care of yourself,” Roman tells him. “You and Shiv. Fuck everyone else.” 

“Your family really sucks,” Naomi says later, when they’re being ferried back to shore. 

She’s not going to get any argument there but if she’s expecting him to throw her a pity party for her ruined vacation, not more tooling around on jet skis and doing drugs with his brother, she should kindly fuck off. 

There’s a jet waiting for Roman at the airport, a message from his money manager about a recent transfer into his accounts to the tune of a hundred million. Something Logan apparently did when Roman was being held hostage and he finds that especially nauseating; men with guns surrounding him and all his father thought to do was leave some money on the nightstand, an incident never to be spoken of again. 

He doesn’t have any messages from Gerri, which he thinks is weird but then it’s a weekday (he thinks it’s a weekday anyway) and she’s in the middle of a lawsuit involving some rapey mega-producer. Nasty, nasty shit that she doesn’t even trust to messengers, harried members of her staff dropping things off themselves at all hours, the last month or so. 

He hovers over the last text message he sent her, thinking about what his dad said on the boat, Gerri’s harpoon having been aimed at Logan Roy’s heart, but his dad is so full of shit about everything and Gerri’s never lied to him. He doesn’t think he’ll even ask her about it. Won’t let the asshole sew doubt and discord there, the way he used to with Kendall and Rava, still does with Tom and Shv. It’s not even worth bringing up really. 

He’s exhausted now but can’t fall asleep on the plane, a jittery feeling he can’t shake, eventually decides to dampen with a couple beers. He presses his head against a seat and thinks about that vacation he mentioned to Gerri and whether he has any chance of getting her to go with him, after her case wraps up. 

Friends do that, right? Go on vacation together? He could rent some place in the mountains, maybe fuck off to Montana or something, get something huge so Gerri wouldn’t feel cramped, plenty of room for her to do her own thing, lots of land for Albert to piss all over. 

_How do you feel about Montana?_ He knows if she’s busy she’ll just ignore him, not even get annoyed. She’s accustomed to his bullshit by now, the occasional string of a dozen text messages he’ll send when he’s had two red bulls and three coffees, has read something on Twitter that he finds too laughably crazy to keep to himself. But she never texts back and eventually he falls asleep, feet stretched out across the aisle, the sound of crew members occasionally stopping mid-stride to step over him. 

. . . 

The dog pisses all over the floor when he picks him up in Brooklyn. He doesn’t even set up a time for him to be dropped off like he usually does, just fucks right over to Brooklyn at two o’clock in the afternoon because apparently he’s turned into some kind of Hallmark card or something. 

“Albert,” the pet sitter sighs, but Roman doesn’t care, not even when he steps in the puddle. 

His car’s still waiting and Albert knows to jump in when the driver opens the door for them. It’s hot as fuck outside, sweat dripping from between Roman’s shoulder blades, but they still drive around with a window down, Al’s big dopey head stuck out, occasionally barking at another dog that Roman similarly judges to be stupid or ugly or clearly a four-legged asshole. 

_Albert does not like poodles,_ Roman texts Gerri. Feels relieved when she responds a few seconds later. 

_I can’t say I blame him._

He almost tells her that he was starting to get worried, maybe make a lame joke about another hostage situation, but he doesn’t want to be too needy and weird, and anyway he really is serious about this vacation idea. Maybe if he pours enough martinis down her, asks her when she’s full of food and petting Albert, he’ll have half a chance. Worst she can say is no. 

_Dinner and shit talk tonight?_ He really wants to download about his family, maybe vent some frustration about how his father is a colossal bastard who doesn’t trust anyone, not even a human he donated genetic material to, but mostly he wants to hear about her week, listen to her complain about everyone else’s incompetence and the poor decisions her clients make. 

_Raincheck_ , she says, which sucks, but he knows she’s busy. 

It’s Thursday, or so his phone informs him, and he doesn’t have anything on his calendar until tomorrow. He thinks maybe he’ll take a long nap, time change be damned, then take some calls for another deal he has in the works in Spain. It hasn’t decided about it yet, wants a few more face to face meetings to feel those guys out, but he thinks it’s a maybe. He doesn’t really need the extra income, his money manager’s concern about budget when he left Waystar was only due to the fact that he used to piss money away on empty posturing and drunken decisions, ten millions dollars gone between scotch number five and scotch number eight, and it embarrasses him to think about now. All the things he would do, the stuff he would buy, just to make people like him when it clearly had the opposite effect. 

His plan to make phone calls is fucked by him sleeping too long, squinting awake in his darkened bedroom at half past nine. His sleep schedule is really and truly fucked now, but oh well. He’ll just stay up another twenty-four hours to force a hard restart, nothing he hasn’t done a million times before. 

Albert’s climbing the walls, clearly needs to go out, so he takes him for a walk around the neighborhood, people crowding into the sidewalk, probably on their way out for the night. He’s just thinking about what to order in for dinner, still two blocks away from his building, when he sees Gerri’s car roll past him. He thinks it’s her car service anyway, but then it’s stopping in front of his building and he’s suddenly dragging Abert along, walking comically fast but still not letting himself break into an out and out jog. 

He sees her head through the crowd, disappearing into the lobby of their building, but when he gets inside the elevator is already closed and he feels a swell of disappointment here. He knows she already turned down dinner but maybe a brief knock on her door, a passing hello or whatever, would be okay. He debates it in the elevator, Albert sitting at attention and staring at the numbers as if he can fucking count. 

There’s no answer when he knocks on Gerri’s door and he thinks that’s strange. He’s not positive that was her car down on the street but he’d know that French twist of blond hair anywhere, the line of her back as she walks, and that was absolutely her walking into the lobby five minutes ago. 

Maybe she’s on the phone? In the shower, trying to rinse a bad day away? He doesn’t let himself linger on the last thought or the associated images, reluctantly tugging at Albert’s leash and then fumbling with his keys in front of his own door. He just slept for over five hours and he was hungry but now he’s not anymore. He thinks maybe more rest will do him good. 

Albert normally sleeps in his massive crate but Roman doesn’t stop him when he trots into the bedroom and lies down on the foot of the bed. 

“You just peed out the fucking Mediterranean,” he reminds him. “So you can stay, but don’t even think about having an accident.” 

The dog doesn’t even open his eyes at that and honestly, what did Roman expect. 

. . . 

  
_Pop scuttle the boat and kill you all?_ he texts Shiv when he wakes up at three o’clock in the morning, can’t sleep anymore. 

_I wish_ , she says. _Shit really hit the fan after you left._

He wants to know what his dad said about him but he knows better than to ask, isn’t quite so self-sabotaging as to have Shiv repeat the horrible things their dad said around a meal table, Ken probably already too high to function, Tom probably relieved that it was someone else’s turn to take the beating. 

Did Shiv even defend him? He hopes so but wouldn’t bet money on it. She’s worse than Kendall when it comes to shit with the old man. 

_Apparently we were trusting the money but now we’re not trusting the money,_ she tells him, and Roman rolls his eyes here. Because of course Logan will say no to a bad idea, but only if he can claim sole ownership for the decision. Fucking egotistical bastard. _The phrase ‘meaningful skull’ was used more than once and now we get to have a lovely meal with everyone’s knives out._

 _Sounds fun, send me a postcard_. He only gets a middle finger emoji back for that one, and he can’t even laugh at that. He’s too worried about his siblings. Hopes maybe their dad will calm down, figure something else out, maybe make a ritual sacrifice of Connor because what else is that waste of space doing besides financing horrible plays. 

He has an appointment with his trainer at seven and if he times it right, he can probably run into Gerri. But he feels weird about doing that, maybe wishes he hadn’t knocked on her door last night because it occurs to him now that maybe she wasn’t doing anything, she just didn’t want to answer, and that makes him feel panicky, uncoordinated and off his game as he works out. 

“Still jet lagged?” his trainer asks, and he just nods. Maybe he is a little but he doesn’t know how to explain his weirdness, certainly doesn’t want to either, not to some bro named Liam who he pays to make his abs sore as a motherfucker. 

He overdoes it a little, maybe to compensate. Limps home to take a shower and then head out to some meetings he has downtown. The first one is a waste of time, he doesn’t even listen to the whole thing before he jets, but the next two are middling and he stops for lunch when he’s so hungry he thinks he might kill someone. 

He goes to some Japanese place that just opened, a woman he thinks is probably the owner rather than a server talking to him about the lunch specials. She’s tall, redheaded, hot. Maybe a decade younger than him. And she clearly knows who he is by the way she’s acting, but he’s not interested, not even a little, and he tries to give her his best please-go-away smile after a minute, at which point she disappears with his order. He fiddles with his phone while he waits for his food, re-reads Tabitha's text and his very polite reply. It's been such a long few days and he's so tired, he thinks about inviting her out for coffee but he doesn't let himself, knows it's a mistake. They can never be friends and he doesn't really want to be anyway, it just feels weird that she's still out there, floating along in the world, unpleasant memories of him tucked her in chest that he can't do anything about.

The food is good but not great, he probably won’t be back. But a different person, an older dude in non-slip shoes, brings his order out and Roman’s grateful for the reprieve. He leaves a big tip and thanks the host on the way out, bitching in his head about how humid it is today, like walking through a fucking swamp.

. . . 

He doesn’t text Gerri all day, doesn’t get anything from his siblings either, and by eight o’clock, back at home and a bottle of wine open, he’s feeling pretty restless. He leaves his front door propped a tiny bit so he can hear when Gerri comes home, maybe entice her to stop by and yell at him for being so careless with his door.

He has some chicken in the fridge and he looks up a recipe for cooking it with what he has on hand. He never cooks, barely knows how, but Tabitha used to sometimes and he thinks he picked up some basics by watching her puttering around, adding things to sizzling pans. It’s a fucking disaster of course, the chicken turning out burned on the outside and raw on the inside, Albert watching with concern as Roman chucks the whole thing in the garbage with a chuckle because honestly, what was he thinking. 

He orders pizza from that one place, something to look forward to as he takes Albert downstairs for the millionth time. And the pizza is good when it comes, maybe not as good as he remembers, shoving slices in his face that night with Gerri and not wanting to pig out when she’d sworn off eating more. 

The memory makes something warm and calming bubble up in his chest here, no matter that he made a mess of things that night. He’ll always make a mess of things but Gerri is steady and honest and nothing like his family, and he knows he can count on that. Feels grateful to have one good thing in his life besides his derpy dog and an apartment that finally feels like his own. 

He hears Gerri’s voice a little later, that tinkling laugh he sometimes hears when she’s on the phone with her daughters, and he doesn’t want to interrupt her call, just pop out and wave at her here. Maybe tell her that her company apparently makes pizza taste better. 

He throws open the door like an ungainly kid, a string bean of a boy trying to climb the jungle gym, but when he’s leaned dramatically around the doorframe he promptly freezes because there’s a man on Gerri’s arm and she’s wearing a red dress with scalloped lace, the kind of thing that looks like it’d be ungodly scratchy against the skin, and her lipstick is bright and her eye makeup is dark and this is Roman dying, falling down into a endless, infinite void. 

“Can we help you?” the man on her arm asks, and he looks like he could be a news anchor or a television personality, maybe play a football coach on TV. Someone respectable looking with a strong jaw, no fake tan, wide shoulders that are drawing up as Roman stands there. 

The guy repeats the question, maybe a bit more angrily this time, but Roman only stares at Gerri. Sees the way she freezes here, staring back at him in that way that cuts right through him, fucking dissecting him, and Roman doesn’t know what to do with that. Certainly doesn’t want her to see anything more of him because he’s obviously made a mistake, a grand miscalculation because he always gets things wrong. 

Why does he always get things wrong?

He shuts the door quickly, careful not to slam it because for some reason he doesn't want to draw anymore attention to himself. Just tucks himself inside like some fucking useless turtle and quietly shuts his front door, no longer able to see Gerri or the date she’s clearly about to fuck. 

. . . 


	8. Chapter 8

  
He starts to pace his apartment after he shuts the door, unsure what to do with himself otherwise. He can’t stand being here, in his own apartment, is crawling out of his skin thinking about what’s happening just across the hall, that guy with the newscaster face probably touching Gerri. 

He could take the dog for a walk, start out downstairs and walk all the way to fucking Long Island, but there’s thunder in the distance now, a storm rolling in, and Albert hates those. Poor bastard froze up when they got stuck outside in one two months ago, Roman carrying all eight-seven pounds of him when he wouldn’t budge, Al pissing down his torso every time lightning flashed over their heads. 

He reaches for a random bottle of vodka, doesn’t even grab a glass or any fucking ice, taking off into the bedroom with it gripped in his hands. It’s been awhile since he got blind drunk, woke up too hungover to keep coffee down, but he thinks he can pass the whole night like that. If he’s lucky, the better part of tomorrow too. 

The dog trots into the guest room, probably hiding under the bed from the sounds of the storm, and Roman pauses his plan to get shitfaced just long enough to feed Al his anxiety pills and then watch him pathetically crawl back under the bed.

The vodka is warm and horrible, he doesn’t even remember buying it, has never even heard of the brand. Maybe something Tabitha picked up or someone else left here after a party, and the memories of that period are like acid in his stomach, something he would normally push away. But not now, when it’s a welcome kind of pain, a familiar one he understands, and he charges back into the kitchen for a glass with some goddamn ice because apparently he’s not as good as he used to be at chugging down shit that’s horrible on his tongue. 

What’s he supposed to do after this anyway? Meet her for Sunday brunch, make lame jokes about that guy and how well he does or doesn’t fuck her? He doesn’t want to think about it, wants to already be drunk so his mind will go soft and fuzzy, but he isn’t drunk yet and he’s mad at himself for not seeing that this was always going to happen. They’re only friends, he’s cast himself as some weird pervy eunuch in relation to her, and it’s what he’s chosen, what he thought best because he’s a raging fucking idiot, so what did he think would happen? 

It’s like he expected them to live in some odd in-between, like a sexless platonic marriage with him waiting for her when she gets home from work, them going to the symphony. Forever bitching about his family while Gerri listens, waspy comments floated to him over her martini glass, an occasional touch to his wrist and a chaste kiss to her cheek. 

He doesn’t hear his door open, only the sound of it shutting, and he slams the fridge in surprise, dropping some ice that goes skittering across the floor. 

“You don’t get to do that,” Gerri announces, striding into his living room. Her hair is down, no longer pinned up, and the lace dress from earlier is gone, a green printed one in its place. He means to make a joke about how that must be some kind of speed record, maybe a crude play on the phrase ‘two pump chump’, but the words turn to bile in his throat and he ducks away from her. Pours vodka into the tumbler he’s already filled with ice. “You do not get to do that,” she repeats and she sounds angry, so incredibly angry, and that isn’t fair. 

None of this is fucking fair. 

“Alright,” he manages before he drinks, the alcohol still burning all the way down.

“It’s not fair,” Gerri says, her voice rising. “You wanted to just be friends, not fuck things up, you don’t get to have your cake and eat it too. You don't get to text me about vacations you want to go on - _fucking Montana_ , ruin my date because you’re some selfish, greedy manchild.”

”Okay,” he swallows. Tries not to look at her even though he can see her in profile, her chin tilted up, her feet apparently bare. She exudes so much gravity even without her armor, the pearls and bitch glasses she favors, and he wonders if she knows that. She walks into the room and the laws of physics shift, the air a little thinner when he breathes.

She marches over to where he’s standing, taking the glass out of his hand and polishing off the rest of his drink. She snatches up the bottle after that, refilling the tumbler to the brim. 

“You don’t even drink vodka,” she seethes and drinks again.

“I’m sorry,” he says, licking his lips as he watches her suck an ice cube into her mouth, cracking it with her teeth. “You’re right, it’s not fair. You should do whatever you want, you have every fucking right.” 

“I respected what you said about not messing this up,” she tells him, handing the glass back now, and he watches her watching him drink from it. “I did. But there’s nothing I loathe more than a hypocrite and you _do_ _not_ get to look at me like that - like I’ve gutted you with a chunk of broken glass, right after you’ve been off, fucking your ex-girlfriend in Croatia.” 

He’s in the middle of passing the glass back to her when she says the last part and he almost fucking drops it, nearly shatters it on the ground, Gerri steadying it with her hand when he fumbles.

“What?” 

“You’re a lot of things but you aren’t a liar. Don’t do that.” 

“What am I doing?” he demands, taking the glass from her and slamming it down, only for Gerri to pick it up again. “Because I’m really fucking confused.” 

“You might not be active on social media but Tabitha is and she posted a picture of the two of you.”

“I haven’t seen her since she moved out!” he shouts. He feels lost but also cornered now, like he’s back in father’s house, his siblings picking each other apart, gaslighting each other, his dad watching from the end of the table and appearing unmoved, as if he wasn’t pulling every goddamn string. “She sent me a text when she saw the news about the hostage thing. But that was it, just some ‘checking to see if you’re dead in a diplomatic incident’ bullshit message.”

“Roman,” Gerri grounds out, slamming the glass down by his hand, almost catching his fingers with it this time, and he moves, snatching his phone off the counter. 

He pulls up the only app that Tabitha ever used, angrily scrolling through her posts until he sees the one she’s talking about, a picture of the two of them on a beach with the caption, _Glad this one is happy and healthy._ Tabitha’s smiling in it, her arms slung around his neck, but he looks anything but happy and healthy there. He’s sunburned and clearly drunk, no matter the sunglasses hiding his eyes. Some overgrown frat looking douche who refused to move on or fucking graduate, a joke of a human poured into a too tight shirt. 

“That’s from the Maldives.” He hands his phone to Gerri. “March before last. That cut on my arm is from the hang gliding I decided to do while I was still drunk from the night before.” He shrugs. “No one thought to talk me out of it.”

She doesn’t say anything here, only frowns, licking her lips, his phone held in front of her. 

“I don’t actually make a habit of lying to you,” he says, closing his eyes. Thinks maybe they’d both be better off if he had. 

What a fucking waste.

His head hurts now, too much booze on an empty stomach, and he goes to the sink, pouring himself some water, Gerri silent and still behind him. 

“The press made everything in Turkey sound worse than what you were saying,” she says eventually, and her voice sounds shaky until she clears her throat. Pauses. Starts again. “I started googling around, trying to find more information and then that picture came up with you tagged in it and I…I thought. . . I don’t know.” 

He turns around here, still confused and angry, but less and less sure what he’s angry about or who even with. 

“Did you go out with that down market Brian Williams looking asshole because you thought I was fucking my ex-girlfriend?” 

“No.” She’s vehement at first, Roman coming to stand in front of her as she glares at him. “Maybe,” she allows, looking away. “I don’t know, Roman, it doesn’t matter.”

He can see now that she’s wiped off most of her makeup, only smudges of eyeliner left at the corner of her eyes, as if she took it off in a hurry or was too distracted to get it all. She’s frowning, that deep crease she sometimes gets in her forehead when she’s reading through documents, the skin under her eyes looking tender, a little bit red, the way it does on nights she drags home from the office after a full day in court and no lunch under her belt, her only apparent reward that she gets to do it again the next day. 

He hates this. Hates that he’s someone who never chooses right the first time. 

“Hey,” he says, running his hand over her arm here. She won’t look at him but she still grabs his hand, her fingers pressed into his knuckles. “Hey,” he says again, and this time he kisses her cheek. 

“Hey,” she says back. Lets out a shaky breath. 

“I don’t think I said the right words that night, after the symphony. I don’t - I don’t think you understand.” She’s gripping his hand still, her fingers locked around his thumb and her knuckles digging into his palm, and he moves his free hand to her hip, watching the way her chest moves as she breathes out. “I really hated poetry in school, thought it was the fucking worst, but I keep thinking about this one about, um. . . a woman who’d fold up months into drawers and count centuries on her fingers if she only knew when she could see someone again, and I just… Gerri, I get through entire weeks by folding up the days one by fucking one until I get to see you, and that’s not nothing.” 

“Roman,” she says, probably trying to stop him because he’s making a fool of himself,probably sounding like a total asshole. But her hand is still in his and she’s not pushing him away, and that’s not nothing either. 

“I don’t want to lose you,” he says, his fingers bunching in the loose fitting dress she’s wearing. 

“I know,” she nods, her eyes looking glassy now. “I do.” 

“So maybe we keep everything that already works,” he says and plus her closer, hears her small intake of breath. “Like the takeout and you insulting me over drinks, and you can still call me your friend, no worrying about get tied down again. But maybe sometimes, when we both feel like it, I also lift you onto this kitchen island and press my tongue inside you until you won’t let me anymore.” 

It’s him who kisses her this time, his tongue running along her teeth in that way that made her groan into his mouth last time, and soon enough his shirt off, her nails scraping at his chest, her dress bunched up around her waist. 

“Tell me to stop and I’ll stop,” he says, his mouth on her neck, and he feels her nails digging into his back after that. 

“Stop and I’ll kill you,” she tells him, gasping right after, his thumb finding her nipple. 

He wants to tell her how much he missed her, how he ran himself ragged with the hope of seeing a message from her or hearing her voice. But this still feels too raw, dangerous to think about, so instead he tells her all the things he wants to do to her, has thought about doing to her a thousand times over.

“Show,” she chides, an inpatient edge to her voice even as his mouth’s on her breast, his fingers kneading into her ass. “Don’t tell.” She looks incredulous when he lifts her onto the kitchen island a minute later, her dress already tossed into the living room. “I’m too old fuck on a counter,” she warns him, but her annoyance has the opposite effect.

“That wasn’t exactly the plan,” he chuckles. “Stay there.” 

He grabs a chair from the dining room, carrying it with one hand and dropping it in front of her, the metal back against the counter. 

She laughs when he sits down, legs on either side of the chair, his mouth now kissing a trail up her leg. 

“I filed my flight plan with you earlier,” he says, voice a little hoarse. Pauses to run his tongue along the crease of her knee. “You really need to start paying attention, Ms. Kellman.” 

It’s easier to start with her panties on and so he does so, her fingers already threaded in his hair as he touches her over them, and at some point she lies back and he pulls the offending fabric off, tossed off in the same general direction as her bra and dress. 

“You get to to find those later,” she complains, but then his tongue is on her and she loses some of that famous verbal acuity, Roman feeling pretty fucking proud of all that planning he’s been doing in his head, the chair he’s in the perfect height for doing this comfortably for days. 

She isn’t loud, not even when she moans, but she’s making little noises in the back of her throat that sound like the air is stuck in there, lodged, and he thinks that if he just gets tongue far enough in her, at just the right angle, he might actually jostle that sound out. 

It’s a physics problem no one ever taught him in school but he’s rapidly working it out anyway. 

“Fuck!” she shouts, her legs squeezing where they’re draped over his shoulders, his hands gripping her hips when she bucks up. “Oh God, _Roman_.” 

Her licks her through it, his mouth moving down to her thigh afterward, open-mouthed kisses pressed into her skin. There’s a tiny bruise on her right thigh and he wants to know how she got it, pictures her swearing as she walks into the corner of her couch or an end table, his lips pressing carefully into the skin there.

“You aren’t dead are you,” he teases, when she’s gone a few minutes without saying a word or moving much, his lips still trailing over her skin. 

“Mmm pretty close.” She’s still out of breath, sounds perplexed when she says, ”oral sex normally doesn’t do it for me.” 

“Maybe you were just faking for my benefit.” It shouldn’t be a funny joke to him, not when he’s sure most of his partners have faked it. But her legs are still twitching under his touch and he’s pretty sure his whole face is coated in her, so he’ll take the chance, court the risk. 

“I don’t do that,” Gerri says, struggling to sit up until he lends her a hand. “And I certainly wouldn’t be that convincing.” 

He helps her get down, though it’s tempting to strand her up there, a snack he nibbles on whenever he wants it. He says as much and she hits him in the stomach, Roman chuckling as they both drink some water. He sips slowly, quietly watching her as she stands naked in his kitchen, no sign of self-consciousness about what they just did.

“I don’t mean to be selfish,” she says. “I just… need to cool down a minute after that.” 

“I’m fine,” he lies, and she smirks at him. Nods to his tented pants. 

“Sure you are,” she says. “Shit, where’s the dog, he didn’t watch us do that did he?” 

“No, he’s hiding under the guest bed because of the big bad storm.”

“Guest bed you say.” She puts her water down here, snaking her arms around his waist, hands resting on his ass. “So no dog loafing about in your bedroom then.” 

She asks him if he has a condom once they’re in there and he honestly isn’t sure. 

“Probably?” he says, and she makes an aggrieved noise here. “Hold on a second.” 

He finds three hiding in a drawer in a bathroom and he doesn’t want to think about that because he’s pretty sure he didn’t leave those there. 

“Need instructions?” Gerri drawls as he fumbles. “Maybe a video tutorial?’ 

“You’re awfully smug for someone who just creamed all over my face.”

But then he’s hovering over her, the tip of his dick pushing into her for the first time, and he’s grateful for both the condom and that stupid medication his therapist has him on, its side effects making masturbation about as tedious as watching a three-hour film for a five-second nude scene. 

“Need to count prime numbers?” she asks, looking up at him with heavy lidded eyes. 

“Maybe,” he says and kisses her, her breasts rubbing against his chest, a friction he’d like to chase forever. “Thought about this a lot but the reality is way fucking better.” 

He feels her kissing his neck later, when he’s close, her fingernails pressing into his shoulder, and then she’s moaning again, those soft sounds in the back of her throat, and it gives him a goal to hang onto when he’s sliding in and out of her, one hand lifting her up, cradling her ass.

“Please,” he begs her, though she’s already giving him everything he ever wanted, the push of his hips getting erratic when he hears her groan, their bodies slick with sweat and her nails digging deeper into his back. 

“Rome,” she gasps, and then it’s just the sound of skin against wet skin until he’s coming, Gerri’s legs wrapped around him. 

He feels only half conscious when he feels her pushing on his shoulder, the sensation turning into a solid shove when he doesn’t get moving on his own.

“I’m comfortable,” he complains, but then the condom slips and he’s rolling off her, Gerri muttering under her breath about all men being idiot children as she hightails it to the bathroom. 

“Don’t you dare come in here,” she says when he follows her in, only to trudge back out again. 

“I got tested after Tabitha,” he calls through the propped door. Chews his fingernail here because he doesn’t want her to be worried if she doesn’t need to be, even if this is fucking humiliating to admit. “And there hasn’t been anyone in between, so.”

He hears the sound of the toilet flushing, followed by the sink.

“Were you concerned about something?” she asks when she comes out. She’s naked because they literally just had sex, but God, he wants to bury his dick in her all over again. 

“Well I’m pretty sure that I’ve never seen the condoms we just used. So yeah, I’d say there were one or two concerns.”

“I’m sorry,” she says, leaning against the doorframe. “I know what that feels like and it’s shitty.”

He shrugs. Pulls a face. “Since we’re already onto conversation topics that make me want to hurl myself out of a fucking window. . .”

“Uh huh.”

“My dad said a weird thing the other day. Something about you gunning for him.”

“Are you sure you want to do this now?” she asks him. But she doesn’t sound angry or put off, is using the same soft tone he hears her use with Albert when she thinks he isn’t paying attention, off in the kitchen fussing with plates and takeout containers.

She moves around him and sits on his bed, her chest still flushed pink from the physical activity, maybe the orgasm. Her cheeks are rosy too, color blooming out along the bone there, and he knows now why people started painting pictures, all that art he used to mock in museums because he just didn’t understand yet.

“No,” he admits, sitting down on the floor right next to her. Leans his chin against her thigh, the skin there still tacky with dried sweat. “But tell me anyway.”

“Right after you moved in a potential lawsuit hit my desk. Woman who worked for Waystar in the nineties.”

“Brightstar?” he guesses and she nods. Runs her fingers through his hair and leaves them there.

“I turned it down,” she says. ”Before I really ever spoke to you. But then it felt like you were following me, always hanging out in corridors right when I’d get home.”

“Umm, it’s called a crush,” he chuckles. Feels only a little embarrassed that she noticed him lurking around, trying to engineer run-ins. He’s done worse and with far less to show for it. 

“So I gathered,” she says, sounding amused. “Certainly didn’t make much sense for Waystar to plant someone so obvious if they were gathering information. And you _are_ surprisingly charming.”

He feels her drawing herself up, maybe her version of bracing for impact, and he grabs her free hand, fingers pressed into hers when he says, “I thought you said you’d never had Waystar in your crosshairs.”

“I didn’t,” she says quickly. “I mean, yes, I would have been happy to sue them, thrilled even, but there was something off about the whole thing from the start. The woman never flinched when we went over the cost of litigation, possible effects to her life, and that’s. . .Odd. People always waver.”

He frowns here, pulling at a fiber of the rug beneath him with his free hand, the texture of it chafing against his bare ass.

“You think maybe she had a backer?” It would explain a lot of murmurings he heard this week, the things he was never brought in on.

“Maybe,” she squints. “And something tangly like that gets out, even if every allegation is true, that woman’s credibility is gone and everyone after that who accuses the same company might as well be trying to move a mountain.” She looks down at their conjoined hands here. “I passed on the case almost immediately, but I understand if you’re still upset I didn’t tell you later.”

“Mmmm no,” he decides after a pause. “I’m not. Not like I was anything to you at the time and you didn’t really lie.”

“No?” she breathes out.

“Not a lie, not quite the whole truth. The Roman Roy special.” He shrugs, stretching out his right leg because it’s begun to go numb. “And apparently you loathe a hypocrite, so I can’t throw stones or you might not let me see you naked again after tonight.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she says, clearly about to be a bitch. “Didn’t you know? This was only a one off. One of us probably has to move now.”

“Oh yeah?” he says, getting up. “Guess I’ll just have to make it worth your while then.”

She’s laughing when he pins her down, his mouth moving over her the skin between her breasts, his hardening dick pressed against her leg as his hands start to wander. 

He doesn’t see the three missed calls from Kendall until hours later, when he takes Albert out to use the bathroom, Gerri escaping back to her apartment because she has to be up in a few hours, do some work in the office. He calls Ken back but there’s no answer and he’s relieved at that. Doesn’t want to ruin the high he’s currently feeling with a family update, the inevitable download about how their dad doesn't listen to anyone but the paranoid, dictatorial voice inside his head. 

He shoves his phone in his pocket, Albert sniffing every square inch of wet concrete there is before finally stopping to piss all over a tree. He shifts from foot to foot while he waits for Al to finish. Wonders if it’s supposed to rain again tomorrow and whether Gerri can be talked into doing filthy things after she gets home from work. 

. . .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to be horribly mean and keep this chapter in my pocket for several days, but hopefully some of you are able to focus in class now, maybe not stare off in work meetings. 
> 
> Your crops have been watered, the sun is out, go forth and share the kindness with others. ❤️❤️❤️


	9. Chapter 9

Roman wakes up to his phone alarm reminding of an appointment with his trainer in an hour, but he knows there’s no point as soon as he struggles to get out of bed. His abs are annihilated from the appointment yesterday, it hurts like shit when he bends down to fill Al’s water bowl, so he sends a text cancelling and then goes to the fridge, debating breakfast. 

He settles on cereal because it’s easy and fast, stands right at the counter to eat it for the same reason, but his arm ghosts over a sticky spot and he thinks about the last thing he ate at this counter, and then he’s smiling so hard he can barely get the spoon in his goddamn mouth. 

“We didn’t scar you, did we?” he asks the dog, and Al just stares at him from his spot on the living room floor, clearly ready for his morning walk. 

It isn’t raining but it’s still humid as fuck today. Early enough to beat the heat at least, so he gives Al a good ten-block sniff of the neighborhood before doubling back. He remembers Kendall’s calls last night when he’s halfway home, still hasn’t heard anything from either of his siblings today, which is odd, all things considered. He calls Ken again, phone pressed to his ear as Albert pulls on the leash, probably trying to catch up to a golden retriever that’s half a block in front of them, but Ken doesn’t answer, the call goes right to voicemail, and that’s weird too. Definitely a bad sign.

He throws himself in the shower while he quietly starts to worry, feels guilty now that he didn’t try to call Ken a second time last night, maybe send him a text before he went to sleep. 

He’s exhausted when he gets out, Albert already curled up on the floor of his bedroom and very clearly going back to sleep, and that doesn’t sound like an awful idea. He slept a lot the night before last but he’s still pretty shortchanged on rest and it’s catching up with him, the five hours of sleep he got last night clearly not enough. He towels off his hair and pulls on a clean pair of shorts before surrendering himself to bed. Rolls over and finds a spot on his pillow that still smells a little like Gerri, tucking his face there. He thinks of her joke last night, the one about it being a one-off and how one of them now has to move, but he’s tired enough that it’s easy to push the worry away.

. . . 

He wakes up from his nap disoriented, Al barking in the living room, but then he hears the banging on the door and he gets up, cursing when his foot gets caught on a sheet as he tries to twist out of bed. 

“I’m coming,” he calls, when the knocking gets louder, more persistent, and whoever it is, he’s going to let Albert bite them, he swears to fucking God. “Jesus Christ, I’m _coming_.” 

He opens his door to find Gerri on the other side, which is a surprise - a happy one, maybe. Only she looks upset again, charging into his living room the way she did the night before, Albert happily wagging his tail at her. 

" _Now_ you start locking your door,” she complains, stopping to pet the dog and then walking past them both, into the hallway.

“I thought you were at the office,” he says, following her.

“I was,” she says, and kicks off her shoes, two soft thuds against his floor. “I should still be. It’s almost noon, were you really still asleep?”

“I’ve been traveling,” he defends, “and why are you pissed when all I’ve done is lock my door like you always tell me to?”

“I couldn’t concentrate,” she says, marching into the hall bathroom now, him hot on her heels. “I can always concentrate.” She starts rummaging through the drawer, Roman hovering in the doorway as she digs through travel toothpaste, five different kinds of hair gel. “I once argued in court while I was in labor. Waited so long to go to the hospital that I almost had my second daughter in the back of a chauffeured car.” 

“I’m sorry?” 

“I don’t get too horny to function,” she announces, pulling a condom from the drawer. Pushes him back out of the bathroom and farther down the hall. “And I certainly don’t leave work for a quickie, like some balding moron with a midlife crisis convertible and a twenty-two-year-old girlfriend.” 

“Evidence seems to be to the contrary,” he says, once he’s clued into what’s going on, walking backwards a little faster than before.

“I blame you,” she informs him as she unzips her skirt. “This is your fault.” 

“I am a horrible influence,” he smirks before she shoves him back onto the bed, kicking off her underwear as he tries to wriggle out of his shorts.

He won’t need much more to get going, maybe to touch her for a minute or two, but apparently she has other plans because once she’s on the bed, crawling on her knees, she drops her mouth to his dick. 

He’s pretty sure he swears but he doesn’t actually know, can only see the way her eyes close when she’s about to take him in and then that insanely good feeling of being sucked into her mouth and fuck, he might start thrusting into her mouth, he can’t help it. 

“Hey!” he practically shouts, when she pulls her mouth away after only a few seconds. “I was enjoying that!” 

“That was only a timesaver,” she says, tossing the condom onto his chest as she moves to straddle him. “You needed a jump-start and it was the fastest way.” 

She makes impatient sounds when he fumbles with the condom again. Pushes him down when he tries to sit up, angles herself over him and then sliding down, only half of his dick inside of her as she sits on top of him, blouse still on, hair pinned up, like something right out of the porn he used to watch.

“Not everything is for you,” she tsks when he tries to thrust up, push inside her more, and he watches as she adjusts her position, leaning forward. 

“I’m very greedy,” he agrees, going to work on the buttons of her silk blouse. He gets half of them open and from there he’s able to pull her bra down. Grabs her breasts, palming them as she moves on top of him, a slight rocking motion that’s driving him crazy, probably hitting her clit. “Getting what you wanted?”

“Yes,” she says and it’s raspy, her cheeks already turning pink, and he thinks she deserves to have whatever it is she needs, no questions asked

He bends his knees to improve the angle, flexing his hips for her, and she moans at that, throwing her head back as she moves back and forth, the pressure in his dick unbearable because this feels amazing but it isn’t enough to get him off and God, he just wants to be balls deep in her already. 

“I would have come to your office,” he tells her when her face goes red and he thinks she’s close but she can’t seem to trip over the finish line. “Fucked you on your desk.”

“You don’t deserve that.” Her expression is morphing into frustration now, probably annoyance that her orgasm is proving elusive, a key that won’t catch in a lock no matter how many times she goes through the right motions. 

“No,” he grunts his agreement, yanking her forward so that she folds over. “I don’t.” 

He raises his knees and grabs her ass when he starts to thrust, and her head is hitting his chin and his abs fucking burn but it doesn’t matter, none of the pain matters because she’s moaning now, making nonsensical sounds that could maybe be words in a language he doesn’t know. He speeds up, uses the fingers on her ass to spread her wider, thrusting in and out of her as she bites down on his chest, pain blooming out from where her teeth dig in. 

He feels her clenching, hears and feels the guttural sound she makes, her mouth still against his skin, and then he’s saying her name as he comes right after her, hips locked as he pushes inside her. 

“That was a cruel fucking tease of a blow job,” he says when he comes back to himself, Gerri still pressed against him, his hands still splayed across her sweaty ass. 

“I meant to do it longer,” she admits. “But I just… couldn’t wait.” He chuckles at that. “Are you laughing?” 

She’s already forming a complaint, he’s sure of it. 

“Um, am I happy you couldn’t wait to sit on my dick? Fuck yes, guilty as charged.” 

She seems mollified by that, relaxing against him for a minute, but soon enough she’s pushing herself up and off, looking around for the clothes she discarded. 

“I have to go back,” she informs him. “Car will be here in a few minutes.” 

“Are you serious?” But he knows she is and he’s smirking again, Gerri staring down at him with a stern expression that he knows is pure bullshit. 

“I told you,” she says, shimmying into her panties. “I have work to do.” 

“Can you at least eat lunch before you leave?” 

“I don’t have time,” she sighs, bending down and pressing a quick kiss to his mouth. “I wish I did.” 

She gets a text from her driver when her skirt’s back on, her hair re-pinned. She’s almost out the door when he stops her, saying, “Wait, wait.” 

He kisses her cheek and the other one for good measure and then, because she’s staring at him with her lips parted, cheeks still flushed from sex, he kisses her mouth, gently sucking on her bottom lip before he pulls away. 

“I would like it noted that I would much prefer to stay here,” she says. And it’s nice to hear. Something he needed, maybe. 

“The record will reflect the wishes of one Gerri Kellman,” he announces. “Even if she has declined the offer of a meal and is running out not ten minutes after fucking me.” 

“Brunch tomorrow,” she promises and kisses him again, but then his tongue is in her mouth and her hands are on his chest and he thinks maybe she’s changed her mind.

“I really have to go,” she says, pulling herself away. Sounds regretful this time, clearly torn. 

“Off with you then,” he smiles, opening the door. 

She doesn’t look back when she walks to the elevator and he thinks maybe that’s better, easier. 

. . . 

_Have you heard from Kendall?_ Shiv texts him when he’s watching TV on his couch, Albert snoring beside him. 

_No_ , Roman texts back. _Was starting to think you’re both dead._

_Just the usual workings of our harmonious, loving family._

Her last text sets off his bullshit detector because, yes, it’s the kind of sarcastic comment either of them would make on any given day. But it’s also vague and uninformative, the kind of thing she sends him when shit’s going down and she doesn’t want him to know she’s busy sharpening her knife. 

He sends her a thumb’s up emoji, already getting off the couch and calling Kendall again. It goes straight to voicemail the way it has all day and he sighs with resignation here, already mentally locating his shoes and keys as he scrolls through his contacts, sending out texts to Kendall’s old junky friends. He sends one to the dog sitter too, Albert sitting up on the couch now, staring at him like he knows he’s about to be foisted off on someone else. 

“You like your Brooklyn time,” Roman reminds me, scratching his head. But the sitter hasn’t replied by the time all the other texts are rolling in and that’s frustrating as hell. Why the fuck does he pay people if they aren’t going to answer him back in a reasonable amount of time? 

He doesn’t like it, doesn’t want to, but he does a few more things, trying to stall, and then he goes across to Gerri’s door, knocking twice. 

“Hey,” she says when she answers. She’s still in her work clothes, probably got home a little while ago, her perfume faded but still barely hanging on. 

“I’m sorry to ask but I apparently have to go fish my brother out of whatever cesspool he’s landed himself in. Can you check on Al if I’m gone the rest of the night?” 

“Okay,” she says but sounds wary. “What’s going on with Kendall?” 

“Nothing good,” he says because he doesn’t want to talk about it. Doesn’t know how to explain how complicated everything with his brother always is. “Here’s a key if you need it and he’s already had dinner so don’t let him lie to you.” 

“Noted,” she says primly, and then stands there staring at him, his key in her hand. 

“Thanks.” He tries to make himself smile but doubts it’s very convincing. “Sorry to bother you.” 

“Rome,” she calls, when he’s moved away from her door, already heading down the hall. “Call if you need something, okay?” 

“Sure,” he says, although he knows that he won’t. Won’t pick up his phone to text her when he inevitably finds Kendall strung out in a party in Tribeca or maybe Chelsea, has to pay people to delete photos off their phones before he carries Ken’s mostly dead weight down to the street and into the waiting car. 

He hopes there’s an elevator this time because the shitty walkup’s are always the fucking worst. 

He finds Ken in fucking Williamsburg because of course he fucking does, but Kendall’s at least sitting up when Roman walks in, only a smattering of people around, and he’s grateful because most of them look like pretentious, artsy assholes and those are far and away the easiest kind to pay off. 

“Time to go, buddy,” Roman says, coaxing Kendall up. But something shifts when Ken sees him, the spaced out look on his face changing to something else, and then they’re just standing there, Ken’s face pressed into Roman’s neck as he balls his eyes out, people around them quiet and watching now. 

“I can’t,” Kendall keeps saying as he sobs. “I can’t.” 

Roman doesn’t know what this is about, maybe not the Waystar stuff at all but something to do with Rava, maybe Naomi, and he lets his brother cry until there are no more sounds coming out, just Ken leaning against him, arms limp at his sides. 

“I’ve got you,” Roman says as he leads him out. He doesn’t think anyone got a video of that whole thing but honestly, the internet's seen much worse of Kendall Roy than a ten-minute public crying jag. “Come on, I’ve got you.” 

Ken gets into the elevator under his own power, but he’s zombie walking and Roman tries to figure out what he’s dealing with. A good quantity of booze from the smell of him, but maybe some pills too? Definitely not an upper, not even the backside of one, and most other things leave Ken way less functional than this. 

“I can’t go home,” Kendall says in the car. Starts crying all over again. “Please don’t take me home.” 

“Okay,” Roman says and has a brief exchange with the driver. Awkwardly pats Ken’s head when he slouches over, his torso in Roman’s lap. “It’s okay.” 

He’s going to kill that fucking dealer, whoever it is. 

Roman gets his key in his door but it’s apparently already unlocked and when he opens it, Kendall leaned against the wall, Gerri’s sitting on his couch, laptop in her lap, Albert by her side. 

“Hi,” he says, pushing Kendall forward toward the guest bedroom. He doesn’t say anything else to her because he’s immediately occupied with the task of getting Ken into the ensuite bathroom and then getting him into bed. 

“I can’t,” Kendall’s starts saying again and Roman feels so defeated, so fucking defeated because despite all their money everything is so fucking pointless and he can’t even keep his brother clean. “I can’t let him.” 

“Can’t let who?” Roman asks, Kendall already in the bed, rolled over onto his side so he won’t suffocate if he throws up. But Ken doesn’t answer, is maybe unconscious already, and Roman hefts himself up, leaves the door open when he goes, Albert still in the room and watching Kendall with big, worried eyes.

“Is he okay?” Gerri asks when he comes back out, and for some reason he’s surprised she’s still here. Maybe he expected her to just leave or something. 

“Not as bad as it’s been before,” he shrugs. “Thanks for watching Al, I didn’t mean to put you out.”

She frowns at that, closing her laptop and getting off the couch. Comes over to where he’s currently hovering behind it, Albert coming back in and sniffing his pants. 

“I think it’s the least I could do, as your most favorite human. Unless I no longer have that moniker?” 

He feels embarrassed at having ever said that now, regretful of how easily he lets people have things. His money. His trust. The power to hurt him. It’s probably all bullshit, in the end. Everything usually is.

“It’s still yours,” he says softly. Because it’s the truth and that much he can give her, is no more costly than the things he’s already handed her. 

“I’m sorry about Kendall,” she says and hugs him. Wraps her arms around him carefully like he’s something fragile, a thin stemmed cocktail glass that might break at the middle if handled too roughly. 

“Not the first time,” he says. “Probably won’t be the last.” 

“No” she agrees, holding him a little bit tighter. “And I’m sorry about that too.” 

. . . 

Ken wakes up with what looks to be a hangover, Roman hovering over him with water and an overwhelming sense of resignation. 

“Did I call you?” Ken asks, holding his head as he sits on the edge of the bed. 

“Are you ever smart enough to fucking call me?” Roman asks, thrusting the bottle of water in his face. 

“I don’t, um. I don’t… remember what I said to you last night.” 

“Something about Pop,” Roman says because he’s figured that much out already. “Something about how you can’t let him do something, but you never said what.” It’s tempting to be cruel and punitive here. Tell him how he cried his eyes out like a kid, a room full of strangers watching, but that won’t accomplish anything. Shit like that is probably why Kendall never thinks to call him in the first place when he needs help. 

Kendall doesn’t say anything after that. Just showers while Roman orders their breakfast. He gets extra in case he can still salvage brunch with Gerri later, but he doubts it and that sucks. He remembers here the way she hugged him last night and the gentle voice she used, and after that and two cups of coffee he feels a little less hateful of the world. 

_Ken’s still here_ , he texts Gerri, though he doubts she’d pop over unannounced today. 

_I figured_ , she says immediately, phone buzzing in his hand. 

“So you want to tell me what’s going on or what,” he says when his brother reappears, hair wet, dressed in clothes Roman had messengered over. 

“You shouldn’t know about it,” Ken says, pouring himself some coffee. 

“Fuck you. Like, seriously?”

“I don’t mean it like that,” Kendall says, folding up one of his cuffs and looking at Roman. “I mean for your sake. Legally. I don’t want you in this, dude. You’re already out, clear and safe. You don’t need to be dragged back into this shit.” 

“I’ll get dragged back in anyway,” Roman points out. “And I don’t really fucking love fishing you out of some bullshit party in Brooklyn when I don’t even know what set you off to begin with.” 

“I’m sorry about that,” Kendall says and sounds like he means it. He always sounds like he fucking means it. “I am. But you being outside of Waystar affords you protection now and I’m not, like, just going to detonate that for no reason.” 

Roman rolls his eyes. Texts Gerri, _Food in ten minutes. Ken’s still here. Your choice._

“They’re doing construction on the Hauffman apartment,” Gerri announces when she glides through the door. “I loathe to think what sort of self-entitled prick we’ll end up with for a neighbor now.” 

“What a minute,” Ken says, sitting up in his chair. “You’re dating your neighbor?’ 

“Most people say hello,” Roman points out, already unpacking boxes of food. 

“Hello, Kendall,” Gerri says sweetly. 

“Hello, Gerri,” Ken parrots back, equally unconvincing, and then pivots to look at his brother. “You’re dating your neighbor?”

“We’re friends,” Gerri waves him off. 

“Brunch friends,” Roman agrees. “She even watches my dog when my useless fucking pet sitter doesn’t respond to my texts.” 

“Are you going to fire her?” Gerri asks, already scooping fruit onto a plate. 

“No,” Roman grumbles. Sets down the French press full of coffee in front of Kendall. “Al likes her too much.” 

Roman’s keenly aware of his brother’s eyes on him, probably analyzing away, but it’s better than Shiv doing it and anyway he doesn’t really care. His brother can know that he’s fucking the hot lady across the hall, it doesn’t matter in the end.

“So the Hauffman apartment,” Gerri says, circling back. 

“Eh, I wouldn’t worry too much about that.” He sets down her spiked coffee and then takes a seat next to Ken. 

“It’s still weird to think about you having neighbors at all,” Ken says here. “That’s a first, right?” 

“Yep,” Roman says, coating his waffles in two layers of syrup. 

“Why would you do that?” Ken demands, watching with obvious disgust. “Now they’re not even crispy anymore.” 

“Because I’m a fucking heathen,” Roman says and Gerri smiles here, her mouth hidden behind her coffee cup. 

“So why aren’t you worried about the new neighbor?” Kendall asks and Roman fidgets, topping off his own coffee cup even though it’s only halfway empty and really he doesn’t need anymore, he’s already vibrating. 

“Well,” Roman says, picking up his fork again. 

“Someone you know?” Gerri asks. 

“Someone you’ve fucked?” Ken guesses, and Roman pulls a face, Gerri laughing out loud. 

“Oh now that would be nice and cozy,” she drawls. “Very convenient for you.” 

“No,” Roman says, shoveling bacon in his mouth because he knows she hates that and he feels a little petty now. 

“Okay,” Gerri grimaces, “so what’s the deal? What aren’t you saying?” 

“Well, the thing is,” he says as he pretzels his leg under himself, his other knee resting against the hard edge of the table. “I kind of. . . bought the Hauffman apartment.” 

Kendall chuckles at the same time Gerri says, “What?” and Roman shoves more food in his mouth so he doesn’t have to look at her when she asks, “Why would you do that?”

“I didn’t want someone else moving in there,” he says, after he manages to swallow. “Some other asshole with a famous last name who’ll throw parties all the time.”

“Is there a limit on those?” Ken needles him. “One per floor maybe?” 

“Fuck you, you fucking hypocrite and no. I just did it, okay?”

Gerri’s looking at him in a way that spells trouble but she won’t press him on it now, not in front of Kendall, and for the first time Roman feels grateful for his brother’s intrusion into their routine. 

“Do me a favor,” Ken says when he leaves later. “Don’t tell Shiv you saw me, okay?”

That doesn’t sit well with Roman, a horrible omen for whatever's picking up speed without him, but he nods, handing Ken a thermos of coffee when he says, “Sure thing. Lying to our sister is my favorite pastime.” 

“What the fuck is going on in your family?” Gerri asks, five seconds after Kendall’s out the door. 

“I don’t know,” he admits. “I’ve been trying to figure it out since I got home from that fucking hell cruise.”

“What happened with that?” she asks, rising and moving to the couch. “You haven’t mentioned anything besides your father bringing my name up.”

He wants to do something to keep moving, wipe down the table or something, but Ken already guilt cleaned the entire kitchen and even the table, so he settles for hovering near the balcony and peering out. 

“Well the thing I was sent to Turkey to do was kind of accomplished. But it was also a fucking mirage, so I got to be the bearer of bad news to my father.”

“I’m sure he reacted poorly to the failed chance to take Waystar private,” she says, and he spins around here, probably gaping. “Don't look at me like that, Roman. I’m not some moron off the street. Your father’s company is suffering under the glare of some fairly nasty oversight and then, immediately after those hearings were announced, you got sent to chase down money in Central Asia.” She crosses her legs, looking at him like this is all boring and obvious and she’s insulted he thought she wouldn’t know. “It’s not difficult to connect all the dots, though I’m sorry you got stuck holding that particular bag of shit.” 

“Wasn’t an enjoyable experience,” he admits, making a face. “Won’t be putting it in my scrapbook, that’s for sure.” 

“At least I got some baklava out of it.” She gives him a tight smile. “Though I will warn you now that gifting me sugar is not to your own benefit. I’m not one of those women who only gains weight in my ass and chest.”

“Caught me,” he smirks, though he doesn’t really care where she gains weight. Not really. She can eat all the baklava in Turkey if she wants. “And since you’re a sexy, evil genius who apparently knows everything in the world - yes, he wanted to take Waystar private. Shot the messenger when I told him it wouldn’t pan out with that particular source of funds. But after I left I guess he decided to believe me after all?” He shrugs, makes a weird noise. “Apparently he talked about waving around a meaningful skull to the Board or something.”

Gerri doesn’t say anything here, pressing her lips together in a line, and he would normally try to puzzle her out but he doesn’t have the bandwidth now, not after he woke up four times last night so he could make sure his brother was still breathing.

“You should just say whatever you’re thinking,” he tells her, feeling annoyed. “You usually do and I’ve always liked that about you, so. . . “

“He’s your father,” Gerri says simply. “You love him.”

“Yep,” he agrees flippantly, though he wishes he didn’t. Knows this would all be easier if he hated him. “But he’s also a bastard and I know who he is, so if you’re scared of hurting my fragile little boy feelings, I can assure you that your concern is misplaced.” 

“He needs to sacrifice someone in the family,” she says. “Maybe he could squeeze by with a few members of the executive floor. That tortoise fucker of a head counsel, maybe a package with a few other people tossed in, but probably not.” 

“That would mean jail time, right?” He chews on his nail, thinking about the options.

“Club Fed,” she says. “But yes, ritualized public slaughter of someone to absolve the company of their sins, make the shareholders happy. Probably five to ten years of jail time, maybe more, depending.” 

“Shiv’s never really been on the inside,” he says absently. “But maybe Tom. He took over Brightstar before I left. Seems like he got his hands dirty with the cover up.” 

“He also took that very public shit during the congressional hearings,” she adds, but doesn’t sound convinced.

“You don’t think it plays?” He comes to sit beside her on the couch. Pulls her legs into his lap. 

“Maybe,” she says, relaxing into him. “He’s family, which is good. But he’s also not family. I don’t know. Maybe your father is doing the right thing, taking the fall himself.” He scoffs at that, his hand resting on her knee. “I don’t mean to be unkind, but as you’ve pointed out yourself, Logan won’t be around long. Legal proceedings can be dragged out forever. He’ll be dead before he ever sees the inside of a jail cell.” 

He looks down at her feet here, sees that her nail polish is pink again, a soft creamy one this time that makes him think about roses and spring, hillsides he’s driven by in Europe, all covered in wildflowers. 

“I was serious about going to Montana,” he says. Feels her legs tense where they’re resting against him. “With you, I mean.” 

“I know,” she says. “It’s why I got upset when I thought you were texting me that while lounging around on a beach with Tabitha.” 

“Felt like I was jerking your chain?” 

“A bit,” she admits. “Was pissed off you couldn’t make up your mind and stick with it.” 

“I’m probably still guilty of that,” he shrugs. "Hapless idiot and all. But, um, not when it comes to this, okay? I’m not like, gonna turn around and sleep with someone else, take some airhead Instagram influencer out to dinner.”

“Are you simply giving me assurances here?” she asks, shifting in his lap. “Or are you looking for some in return?” 

He frowns at that because fuck her very much for being so much smarter than he is. 

“I am asking about your parameters,” he says carefully, running a finger along her ankle. 

“I need to be careful,” she says, “given your last name and how it could affect my work. But if you’re asking if my parameters include seeing other men, then no. I believe you’re stuck being my only escort to the philharmonic.” 

“Last performance of the season next week,” he points out, sounding sad. 

He always hates the in between months, plodding along and feeling like he’s just killing time. No different than the rest of his life maybe, but still. 

She makes a resigned sound here and he knows that she probably needs to leave. Go back to her own home and get things done. 

“Thank you for entertaining my ever continuing family shitshow,” he offers, trying to release her graciously. 

“It is something of a marvel,” she admits, swinging her legs gracefully off him and onto the floor. 

“Here to service and entertain you,” he jokes but she grimaces at that, hesitating before she pushes herself off the couch. 

“You don’t need to service me,” she says, carefully standing up. “That isn’t my expectation.” 

“I enjoy servicing you,” he replies, thrown off a little now. “I would assume that much is obvious by the tiny erection I’m so often pointing your way.”

“I just mean. . . Shit.” She pauses, making a face and then closing her eyes for a second. “I’m always so bad at these conversations.” That last bit makes something flip unpleasantly in his stomach, but she doesn’t look upset, just uncomfortable, like maybe she’s about to give him some bad news. “Rome, I clearly enjoy your company while naked, but it isn’t a requirement for seeing me. You’re not a vending machine for sex, my behavior yesterday not withstanding, and if you ever want to pop across the hall just to see me or say hello… That’s allowed is all my saying.” 

The easiest response is a joke, he can think of three off the top of his head, but she looks so open and clearly uncomfortable, he knows better than to respond with bullshit here. Puts his hands on her hips and gently kisses her before he says, “Thank you.” 

“We’re still going to talk about you buying that apartment. But not today.” 

“Hmm,” he says, feigning serious consideration. “What if I keep distracting you?” 

She arches her eyebrows at him, a clear invitation, and he kisses her again, longer this time, his hand slipping under the back of her blouse, fingers resting on the small of her back, her arms coming up around his neck. 

“I really need to go,” she laughs, his mouth moving down her neck.

“No one’s stopping you,” he says. But then the minutes melt away with him kissing her over and over, his face feeling hot when she starts to make that one sound, deep in her throat. 

“You’re very unkind,” she tells him, when he finally pulls away. 

Her hair is a wreck from his fingers and her cheeks are rosy, her pupils blown wide as she stares at him, practically begging to be fucked right here in his living room. 

“You’ll only be mad at me if I keep you from doing your homework,” he smirks, no matter the erection straining in his jeans now. “Be a good little mastermind and run along to your affidavits and whatever the fucks.” 

“You’re an asshole.” 

“Yep,” he says and kisses her cheek. Ignores the way she leans in, giving him the space to do more than that. “But you’d probably let me fuck you against the wall right now, so I’m not sure you should be casting any aspersions.” 

She flips him off on her way out, looks back at him twice, Roman smiling when she disappears, tucked inside her own apartment.

. . .


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Longer than usual chapter this time. (Insert shrug emoji)

Shiv’s doorman lets Roman in with a polite nod, opening the glass door wide enough that Albert can easily meander through. 

“Thanks,” Roman says. He doesn’t think he can manage a smile today but the very least he can do is not be an asshole. 

He’d hoped Wambsgans wouldn’t be underfoot for this but he’s not surprised when he is, immediately sidesteps the hug the dairy farm reject tries go in for, the second Roman arrives. 

“You look good,” Tom tells him, an annoying smile plastered to his face. There’s some kind of sweater vest situation going on, which only further proves that his brother-in-law's deeply damaged, maybe a psychopath, because they’re deep in the ball sack of summer, not even Mister fucking Rogers would wear a sweater today. “Doesn’t Roman look good, honey?” 

“Maybe he ran a comb through his hair once this week,” Shiv says and Roman doesn’t even react to that. 

“Fancy a dog walk?” Roman asks her, gesturing to the pen where Wambsgans’ lame dog is stretched out, probably dreaming about inbreeding with his litter mate or some shit. 

“Uh, we pay people to do that,” Shiv says. And then, “Oh shit, you’re serious. You want to actually do that?” 

“I don’t know,” Tom pipes up. “Mondale just had his nails trimmed and the concrete might cause uneven wear.” 

Roman blacks out from boredom during the ensuing discussion, but it ends with him and Shiv out on the street, dogs wagging tails on either side of them. 

“I don’t suppose you dropped by so our dogs could have bonding time,” she says, leading them toward the nearby park.

She’s holding the leash like she’s never touched one before and it’s annoying for him to watch.

“What are you even doing with that?” he demands. “Here, just give it to me.” 

“I’ve got it.” 

“Just give me the fucking leash, Siobhan.” It isn’t until he’s holding both leashes, getting half dragged by a hundred and fifty combined pounds of dog, that he sees her smirk, belated realizing the play. “You fucking bitch. Can’t even walk your own goddamn dog.”

“Why would I?” she gloats. “When I can trick you into doing it.” 

The park is quiet, not many people around, only an old dude with some yappy mutt that looks like it could croak at any minute. Mondale and Albert both decide to take a dump, Shiv not moving an inch to pick it up, and Roman grabs the bags out of his pocket, muttering about how useless his whole family is. 

“I assume Ken sent you,” she says eventually. Glances around. “He won’t even take my calls, so if he thinks I’m going to listen to some moralizing bullshit from you -” 

“No,” he cuts her off. “He doesn’t even know I’m here. Wouldn’t take my calls either. Which is always a great sign for his sobriety.” 

She frowns at that, shifting on her feet as he wrangles Albert, the two leashes tangling together as dumbass fucking Mondale walks himself in circles. 

“Okay,” she says. “So what is this then.”

“All previous evidence to the contrary, I’m not completely oblivious to how things work. You said something about the need for a meaningful skull mounted on a pike, so I assume our dear father’s about to knife someone in the ribs in order to appease the Board.”

“I don’t know anything about that.” 

“Uh huh,” Roman says, annoyed as shit now. Because she always fucking does this, always draws a line between herself and everyone else when it comes to their dad, and now her idiot husband’s idiot dog is pissing him off, tangling his leash with Albert’s, the sun so hot on his neck that he’s sure he’ll end up with a burn, some weird fucking farmer’s tan. It’s all enough to make him scream his lungs out. 

“I’m not in this,” Shiv lies. Lies right to fucking face. 

“Oh yeah? Well, I think that’s bullshit because you’re so deep in this you’re about to fucking impregnate it. You and dad, two happy little stabby peas in a fucking murder pod.” 

“That’s not fucking fair,” Shiv argues, raising her voice before she lowers it again. Glances around the old man who’s begun to stare at them, now shuffling away with his cane and dinosaur of a dog. “You weren’t there, you don’t know.” 

“What I know is that Waystar needs to throw a virgin into the volcano,” he says, coaxing Albert in another direction. The leashes are untangled now but Mondale won’t do anything, just lies down on the grass like he’s practicing for death while Albert sniffs around him, and Roman doesn’t even know what to do with that. “You’ve never been in, and I’m already way out, and Pop’s never been real up for fucking self-sacrifice, so that only leaves the white noise machine you married and our dear, older brother.” 

“I’m not even in the company,” she shrugs. “This isn’t my call.” 

“Fuck you,” he says to that. “Like you weren’t right there, advising away, steering the conversation away from fucking Tom.” 

“It’s my marriage!” she shouts back, surprising both of them, the two of them surveying the park in silence for a minute after that. “I can’t lose Tom. You’re gone, you’re out, you have a life. But what I have is my marriage and no - no, I don’t fucking want it to be Kendall, but it can’t be Tom.” 

“That’s great,” Roman says. “That’s really great. Our brother’s getting knifed by his father and Ken’s own fucking sister helped.”

“You’re one to talk,” Shiv tells him, pulling that stupid self-righteous face that he wants to smack right off her. “Hanging around with _Gerri._ Family breakfasts with _Gerri._ She fucking hates our whole family, dude. She almost sued Waystar last year.” 

“She turned that case down,” he says quickly, but stops himself from saying more. There’s no fucking way Gerri would want Shiv to know that the case wreaked, dark money lurking somewhere behind it, and he’s not going to violate her trust just so he can shove his sister’s face in a toilet. It’s not worth it. “And you went to work for Gil goddamn commie Eavis, so you can shove your sanctimonious purity test up your flabby ass.”

“I’m just saying I’m not the only one with split loyalties,” she sniffs, hands in her pockets. 

“Cool,” he says, coaxing Mondale out of his death coma with a treat. “Good talk. Glad we did this.” 

They don’t talk much on the way back, Albert stopping to empty his bladder twice even though they just left a whole park with places to piss galore. 

“This sucks,” Shiv says. “All of it. Everything’s sucked since you left.” 

“Yeah, I’m sure someone will write a whole opera about the tragedy that is your poor, oppressed life.” She hits him for that, her fist connecting with his arm, and he hits her back, both of them ignoring the stares they garner as they shove against each other. “Glad to know you finally recognize how delightful I am though. Probably fucking miss me when Baird tells those convoluted stories about absolutely nothing, no one to pantomime him wanking it.” 

“That was always disgusting,” she says. “Deeply scarring.” 

They make it back to her building and there’s an awkward beat before she asks if he wants to come up, maybe have some food. 

“I don’t have it in me to be nice to your husband today,” he says and she nods at this. “But you love him, so I’m also going to pass on the chance to make him cry.” She smiles, rolls her eyes. “Now please take his inbred dog back. I think Albert got temporarily dumber, just from being in proximity to him.” 

He calls Kendall on the ride home but his brother doesn’t answer, the voicemail message coming on after three rings, and Roman sinks down in the back seat, hoping Gerri’s wrong about everything. But beneath that, he knows she isn’t. 

He watches Al crash out in the seat next to him, his tongue hanging out, done in by the heat and the excitement, probably dead for the rest of the day. Roman has meetings all week, days of catching up on things from when he was out of town, and he wishes he had more time, could stop by Gerri’s office and steal her for an hour, take her to some restaurant that allegedly doesn’t open for seating until five o’clock. 

_Will hit you back later_ , Kendall texts him, and Roman knows better than to believe him. _In a thing right now_. 

He hopes that ‘thing’ doesn’t end with him dragging his brother out of another party Williamsburg, but he’s not that much of an optimist. Doesn’t want to think about it anymore, so he takes a picture of Albert’s derpy face and sends it to Gerri. Laughs a little when he gets her response twenty minutes later, when he’s home, preparing for a meeting.

_As useless as his owner._

_Definitely,_ he agrees. Doesn’t bother her the rest of the work day, his phone in his pocket, a steam of people who want things from him talking to him in a series of rooms across the city.

. . . 

Kendall’s press conference goes live while Roman’s having dinner with Gerri; an actual dinner out at a restaurant, where they arrive in the same car and sit at a table alone, a bottle of wine between them. 

“You sure you’re okay with this?” he asks her. “Me being bad for your reputation and all.” 

“It’s fine,” she waves him off. “Everything in this city is incestuous and hypocritical, especially in my business. But it’s one thing for us to be seen together and another to -”

“Confirm I’ve had my dick inside you repeatedly?” He offers his most charming smile to the server who approaches their table just then, Gerri glaring at him from over her wine glass. He allows her to order first and then orders for himself, his foot finding hers under the table. “You were saying?” he prods, when they’re alone again. 

“That you’re a child,” she says. “But also that people already know we’re acquaintances. No one will look twice unless we encourage it.” 

“Acquaintances,” he repeats, feigning a pout. “I’ve been downgraded from friend.” 

“Distant acquaintances,” she drawls. “Practically strangers. Barely civil enough to share a meal.” 

“Well I’d hate to see what you do with your friends, if you let strangers grope your ass in the car.” 

She shushes him here but there’s a smile flirting with her mouth, her eyes clearly amused, and she knows better to encourage him but here she is, doing it anyway, and that makes him happy, giddy even.

News about Kendall’s stunt with the pinched Waystar documents breaks right as their food comes, Gerri immediately asking for the check, directing the server with sharp instructions as Roman frantically makes calls to Kendall and then Shiv, neither of them picking up. 

“Don’t text them anything,” Gerri says, pulling his phone out of his hand while he’s typing one out. “Not until you talk to a lawyer.” 

She’s right but that’s aggravating - it’s all horrible and aggravating. All of this was so fucking obnoxious and unnecessary already, and now his brother’s gone and detonated a bomb in the middle of it. 

They took his car service to the restaurant but it’s Gerri’s that picks them up and he doesn’t even think about that until they’re almost home. He has a meeting with his lawyers first thing in the morning now, his PR team too, but there’s already paparazzi camped out front of the building when they pull up. A double shit sandwich because the press attention on him had completely died down before this. 

“I’m going to hang back,” Gerri says, before they get out of the car. “Follow you up in a few minutes.” 

“What?” Roman asks, but the driver’s already opening the door and he has no choice now but to get out, walk into the building all alone, their boxed up dinner in his hands, looking like some fucking loser. 

He won’t be able to walk Albert at all now, so he summons the dog sitter via text message as he rides up in the elevator. Feels mad as hell at Kendall for being so stupid as to go this alone, blow everything up, but also pretty pissed off at Gerri for not just getting out of the fucking car. 

He let’s the dog out of his crate and drops some food in his bowl. He’s already out of his shoes when his door opens, Gerri re-locking it behind her, and he goes into his bedroom here, disinterested in being in the same room as her. 

He hears the TV clicking on, the sound of his brother’s voice talking about their father, everything Logan knew about Brightstar and people like Lester McClintock, and he absolutely knows that Ken did a bump of coke before giving that press conference. Hasn’t been tricked by that false confidence and steady sounding voice since Kendall was twenty-two, arguing with him about something to do with cars. 

“I hate to say it,” Gerri says, coming into his bedroom. “But that was very compelling.” 

“So was the cocaine he clearly did right before he started speaking. But you should definitely text him the compliment, see if he’s free to take you to the symphony next Friday.” He starts to unbutton his dress shirt now, his back to her as he works his way down. “Just don’t let him mix booze with the coke, he’ll vomit everywhere.” 

“Should I even try to parse the fuck that means?” she asks him, and she sounds bitchy and annoyed here, but not in a fun, sexy way. More like she can’t be bothered to deal with him or his shit and honestly, he doesn’t need that kind of crap right now. 

“It was a fucking walk from the car into the building we both live in,” he grounds out. Gets the last button undone and tosses the shirt in the vague direction of the hamper. 

“You’re mad about that?” she asks, sounding fucking incredulous, and he won’t even dignify that. Goes into his bathroom and closes the door because he needs to piss out the bottle of wine they drank while they were waiting for the food they didn’t get to eat. 

He comes back out and she’s still there, standing in the same spot, even though he clearly isn’t interested in this conversation anymore. 

“There was press outside,” she reminds him, “and pictures of Roy’s will be in high demand tomorrow. Do you really want your father to see a picture of you, standing cozily with me, right after his other son went on TV and stabbed him in the heart?” 

“Don’t do that,” Roman snaps. 

“Lower your voice,” she warns, her eyes flashing.

“Well then don’t fucking pretend that the thing you did for yourself was really for me. I get my fill of that from everyone else in my life, okay? I want more of that, I’ll go spend Christmas with my fucking mother.” 

It’s a shitty thing to say, the exact wrong thing to say to her, and he knows when the words leave his mouth. But he’s still fucking angry, can’t bring himself to apologize, and while he’s struggling to get out of his pants the buzzer sounds, the pet sitter here to pick up Albert. 

“I’ll deal with her,” Gerri announces. “You stay in here, see if you can manage to get your head out of your ass.” 

He probably deserves that. 

He’s buttoning a different shirt when she comes back in, doesn’t know why he didn't throw on a t-shirt or something, but he feels committed now, his fingers struggling because he’s shaking. He’s so mad and scared, he’s fucking shaking. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, but doesn’t look at her, still fighting with his goddamn buttons. “That was a shitty thing to say.” 

“Here,” she says, coming to stand in front of him, taking over with his buttons. “This is almost exactly the same thing you were already wearing, for the record.” He doesn’t say anything to that, doesn’t let himself react, and when his shirt’s halfway buttoned she sighs, her fingers pausing. “You’re right. I did it for me, not you. And I’m not sorry about that, but I am sorry I tried to spin it.” 

“Okay,” he says. He still feels angry, hurt maybe, but he’s also tired now. Too wrung out to keep fighting with her. 

“That wasn’t very convincing,” she says. Pulls away when she gets to the bottom of his shirt. “You have to do the last one.” 

His phone buzzes and he checks it, scanning for new texts, but there’s still nothing from Kendall or Shiv. 

“Wanna hear a joke?” he asks, his voice as hollow and humorless as he feels. “While we were just standing here arguing, I lost about fifteen percent of my net worth. Still plummeting like a fucking stone, too.” 

She sighs at that, the expressionless face she’s been giving him since he came out of the bathroom shifting to something softer, less closed off. 

“Can I suggest something?” she asks, and he gives her a dismissive shrug. “We go back to my place and have a drink. Eat the food that’s already cold while you forego looking at any and all news for at least two hours.” 

“That doesn’t sound like very lawyerly advice,” he says. Feels himself softening already, a lilt to his voice when he responds to her. 

“I’m not being a lawyer right now, I’m being your friend and dinner companion.” 

“Lucky me,” he says, but he doesn’t mean it in an asshole way and she gives him the slightest smile. 

The food isn’t fabulous after it’s been reheated but she hands him a beer to go with it, the two of them eating on her couch, her arm brushing against his, and some of the constricting tightness in his chest starts to ease. 

She puts on a movie even though it’s a Thursday and she’ll have to be up early. Makes vague noises about going in late tomorrow. “It’s good to be the boss,” she says, and he puts her arm around her here. Runs his hand along her shoulder while they watch a documentary he doesn’t pay attention to, his mind busily spinning out as she sags against him more heavily, her hair falling against his neck.

“You should go to bed,” he says eventually. “I’m being selfish by keeping you up.” 

“You can stay,” she says. “If you want.” 

He doesn’t feel up to sex but the idea of his empty apartment doesn’t appeal either, and he trails behind her as she goes about shutting off lights, fiddling with things in rooms. 

She changes into a silk pajama top and he thinks it’s part of the set she wore when she busted up his party that one time. But she forgoes the matching bottoms, reappearing in the bedroom with her face scrubbed clean as he hovers near the bed. 

“I sleep on the right,” she says, but he already gleaned that from the book resting on the nightstand there, a pair of reading glasses on top of it. “Are you waiting for a formal invitation?”

Her bed is softer than his, probably too soft to sleep comfortably in. But the bedding smells like her and it’s nice to feel her next to him, her foot touching his ankle. 

“I’m sorry about dinner,” he says. “I had a whole plan and everything.”

“Not your fault.” She pauses. “What kind of plan?”

“Wine and dine you. Bring you back to my place and take your clothes off. Use my tongue in inventive ways, make you forget about your work week.”

“I have every faith you would have succeeded,” she says, and it’s a silly thing, a simple statement, but it’s what he needed and he wonders at her ability to discern things like that. Like a fucking magic power.

“Is this okay?” he asks, when he scoots over and drapes an arm over her. He’s in his underwear, her bare legs pressed against him, her ass basically in his lap when she readjusts, but it’s like his dick is radio silent or something because all it feels is comforting, nice in and of itself.

“Mm-hm,” she hums. 

His phone beeps on the nightstand twice in the night and he checks it both times, just to make sure. The first time he scoots back to Gerri, who hasn’t budged in her sleep, but the second he feels her move, rolling over to where he is. 

“Everything okay?” Her voice is thick, a little croaky, her hand sliding up his back, rubbing a half circle there. 

“Fine,” he murmurs. Turns back around, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her to him. 

He closes his eyes at the little humming sound she makes, her head tucked by his chin.

. . . 

Gerri’s alarm goes off at five o’clock, all talk of her going in late abandoned, and he gets out of bed when she does, deciding to face his shitastic day head on. 

“What time do you meet with your team?” she asks. Steps out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel, some kind of lotion or something on her face, the skin of her cheeks and chin still shiny. 

“Nine,” he says. Sits on the end of her bed and yawns. Runs his hands through his disheveled hair. “Those spineless fucks are just going to tell me the same thing they always do. Stay out of it, stay clear. Avoid all the bad optics.” 

“Yes,” she agrees. Fiddles with the clasp of her bra, the band of it twisted behind her. “But they work for you, not the other way around, so don’t forget that.” 

He gets up and stands behind her, his fingers righting the twisted band before he re-clasps it for her. Kisses her shoulder once, her skin still tasting of soap. 

“You’re very bossy today,” he says, hands on her hips now.

“I’m very boss everyday,” she replies, turning around. “It’s three-quarters of my personality.” 

“Mm maybe half,” he says, leaning in to kiss her. 

He isn’t trying to start anything, he still feels oddly uninterested in sex at the moment, but she’s clearly woken up in a good mood, their fight the night before forgotten, and he feels better at having woken up next to her, no matter the fucking circus that’s still whirling outside, just waiting for him to enter it. 

“As much as I would love to put that smart mouth of yours to use,” she sighs, “I don’t think I have the time.”

“None of that,” he promises, moving to kiss her neck. “Just two minutes of this, please and thank you, and after that I’ll be a good boy.” 

She scoffs at that but lets him continue on, kissing her shoulder gently, carefully, and then across to her collarbone, just the ghost of his tongue across it before he moves on, moves upward, pressing a soft kiss to her mouth and then another. He pulls away, hands dropped to his sides. 

She looks at him searchingly, that walking algorithm of a brain churning through the data as she stares at him, deciding God knows fucking what. 

“How did you turn out so gentle,” she says, squinting at him here, “when you were surrounded by so many monsters?” 

He doesn’t know what to say to that because he doesn’t think he’s gentle at all, the runt of the litter who always had something to prove, always picking fights and hiding behind crude jokes. He knows what he is, can still hear his mother sighing every time he’d insulted someone for no reason, always telling him in that God awful voice from hell that he’s just like his father. 

He shrugs, makes a weird face that causes Gerri to laugh. 

He forages in her kitchen while she does her hair and makeup, and it’s clear from her fridge that she’s about as domestic as he is. But there’s some sliced melon and yogurt, so he dishes two bowls of that, tops off both of their coffee cups.

She comes out a while later, after he’s set up breakfast on the counter, and she does a double take when she sees it, immediately reaching for the coffee he has waiting for her. 

“I normally eat at the office,” she says absently. Goes about tucking things into her work bag and then fiddling with a bracelet that apparently has a tricky clasp. “Rome, can you help me with this?” 

“Course,” he says, getting up from the counter. It only takes ten seconds, required both hands to get the weird bit latched, but she kisses him in thanks, running her finger across his mouth where her lipstick probably transferred. 

“Is that yogurt?” she asks, eyeing the counter. 

“Yeah but I know you need to fuck off. My fault for assuming.” 

“I can spare five minutes,” she says. Sounds decided here, a matter settled, no matter that she was just worried about time. 

She doesn’t eat much as Roman plows through his, but she sits across from him and sips more coffee and he knows what this is, he isn’t stupid, but he’ll absolutely accept being placated today. 

“Update me when you’re able,” she says when she leaves. Doesn’t kiss him on the way out, her lipstick freshly reapplied. 

“Will do,” he says. Stops her long enough to kiss her cheek and then waves her on. 

She doesn’t leave him a key but he’s able to figure the lock out when he leaves, checking the doorknob twice before he pops across the hall, showering and changing for the day. 

Albert is gone for the whole day, which he fucking hates. It’s miserable dog walking weather even in the mornings, but he hates the feel of his apartment when it’s empty, can’t bear to look at Al’s crate and giant pile of toys.

His PR team has zero surprises for him, gives him a twenty-minute spiel that could have been skipped in favor of a fortunate cookie that said, ‘lay low.’ His legal team reiterates that he has minimal exposure; he never dealt with the cruises shit and he’s been gone from Waystar long enough that no Senator could fancy his head as a hunting trophy. 

“I’m supposed to go to Europe this month,” he tells someone. “Does anyone think me fucking off to Berlin or Madrid is a bad idea right now?” 

Everyone thinks him flying off to a different time zone would actually be better, though he can’t tell if that’s just because they’re all scared he’ll end up drunkenly spouting off at the mouth if the press interest continues.

 _I’m starting to realize that no one on my legal team is half as smart as you,_ he texts Gerri.

 _Obviously,_ she replies as he’s being shuttled to another meeting. _Too bad for you I’ve never specialized in wiping shit off of rich asses._

He smirks at that. Can’t tell if her morning’s going well or it’s actually horrible and she just needs a distraction.

 _There is a Roy with an alleged bed shitting problem, but it’s not me._ He bites his cheek when he hits sends that one. Knows he’s courting her annoyance.

 _That sentence is burned into the back of my retina_ , she tells him a little later, the text popping up as he slams down a coffee between meetings. 

_I’ll make it up to you,_ he promises. Doesn’t look at his phone again until after he meets with a rep from that Spanish media company, setting up a meeting with their satellite office in Germany the week after next.

He’s tired already, an endless stream of people texting or emailing to ask about the Kendall thing even though none of them fucking care, none of them wanting anything other than gossip to tell at a party, maybe something that ends up being a stock tip. But there’s a text from Gerri waiting under all the shit that he deletes, and he stops mid-stride when he reads it, the person behind him in the corridor nearly colliding with his shoulder.

_How would you make it up to me?_

He tucks himself in the corner of an elevator lobby, re-reading the text twice because as flirty as he can be in his texts to her, she doesn’t usually reciprocate, always more careful than him. 

_Kissing your neck and shoulders the way I did this morning,_ he texts back. Decides on that because it isn’t as pornographic as the first two replies that come to mind and this way, if he's misreading her, he won’t be too far out on a limb when she shoots him down.

His phone buzzes immediately. _Not a bad start._

 _I would come to your office to do it,_ he types back. _Relieve a little of your tension by way of my lips and teeth._

 _Security cameras,_ she tsks, and he can hear that fucking prim voice she’d use here, quibbling with details even when they’re sending goddamn sexts. 

_Not in your bathroom there aren’t_ , he argues back. _Still thinking about the way your back looked in there when I zipped you up. Masturbated over it in two very fine Turkish hotels._

_I’m lucky you didn’t stain that dress with your ejaculate that night._

_Can still be arranged._ He’s getting hard now, people getting on and off the elevator by him, the soft dings repeating over and over as the lobby arrows light up and then dim, only to light up again. _I could take off your blouse in that bathroom and kiss every inch of your skin from your pulse point to that freckle on your right tit. Touch you right over your bra._

There’s a pause on Gerri’s end here and it’s entirely possible that she’s going into her private bathroom and locking herself in there, but he knows it’s far more likely that she’s in a meeting, pretending to give someone her attention here while his promises are filling up her inbox. But the reality of that is better - far and away better - and he has to pivot here, hide his straining erection while he thinks about Gerri sitting across from some pack of mouth-breathing stuffed shirts, crossing and uncrossing her legs because his words are making her wet. 

_I would like that,_ she finally texts back. _But I think I’ll need a little more than that now._

_Been worked up since this morning huh?_

_No comment._ That one makes him smirk as much as it makes him huff in irritation because of course she won’t just come out and say she’s horny. Stubborn bitch. 

_Well I’m pretty sure I’d be straining in my pants by then, not unlike I am now, standing in a very beige elevator lobby and thinking about pushing up your skirt, bending you over that sink._ He adds, _It’s a fucking crime I haven’t been behind you yet._

_The thought has merit._

_You’ll think so when you’re bent over in front of me._

_Will I?_

_Yes. Ass out. My hands on your tits._

_Are you really in an elevator lobby?_

_Would you touch yourself if I told you to? Reach between those pale freckled thighs and rub one out while I fucked you from behind?_

_Jesus Christ._ He feels victorious when he reads that text. Elated. Like he just won the fucking Nobel or the Pulitzer or whatever the fuck wasps write long, boring articles about in all the failing newspapers Waystar has long since gobbled up. 

_I promise not to mess up the all important hair. Just make you come all over my dick, maybe your fingers, in that bathroom. Send you back out to your office on fucking shaky legs._

There’s no response for a long time after that, Roman disappointed here but also able to calm his dick. Finally get in the elevator and head down to the car that’s been waiting for him for twenty minutes.

He’s shoving some chips in his face when the email beeps through from Gerri’s assistant, confirming a six o’clock meeting at his office. He laughs out loud, chugging his Red Bull before he sends along the reply. Doesn’t let on to the assistant, Lara, that there is no office and her boss has just requested a meeting with his dick.

. . . 

Kendall calls him when he’s on the way home to meet Gerri. Because of course he fucking does. But Roman answers anyway because he’s been worried sick about him, his stomach in knots, and honestly, what else can he do? Not fucking answer?

“Can we meet up?” Kendall asks instead of saying hello. 

“Sure can,” Roman says, trying not to sigh. He can already feel his many acts of planned filth slipping away. 

“Tomorrow morning” Ken says. “No lawyers.”

“Back at ya. Send me the place and time.” 

Well that pretty much knocks the wind out of his dick, but at least he doesn’t have to deal with it tonight and soon enough his car’s pulling up, 5:55 on the dot, and he’s getting out to face the smattering of photographers still waiting for him. 

He catches a glimpse of Gerri behind him, none of the photographers paying her any mind, and he waits a beat to make sure she gets in okay but keeps the distance between them. 

“Evening, Ms. Kellman,” he says once she catches up to him, both of them waiting for the elevator. 

She doesn’t respond to that, giving him the colder shoulder, but he can see that her right hand is twitching, nominally adjusting her bracelet, and he remembers clasping that for her this morning, and how she basically demanded he be home at six, and no, he’s not buying the ice queen routine. No chance in hell. 

She stabs her finger at the button for their floor, doors bumping closed, and immediately she whirls on him, closing the space between them.

“Security camera,” he reminds her with a giant grin. Points up dramatically, circling his finger in the air at the camera like a total asshole. “Wouldn’t want to embarrass ourselves. Would we, Ms. Kellman?”

“I’m going to bite your dick off,” she sighs at that and he giggles.

“I assume there’s no audio on the camera then?"

“No,” she says. “There is not.”

“Well in that case, I would like it noted that I’m going to make you come so hard you black out.”

Her cheeks go red at that, her eyes already dilated, and when the doors slide open she shoots out ahead of them, several feet between them in a matter of seconds, her keys already out and jangling. 

He barely gets across the threshold of her apartment before she’s shoving him into the wall, her mouth on his, her tongue flicking against his and then sucking his own tongue into her mouth, the noise it makes obscene. Her hand’s already cupping him over his pants, moving to his fly, and he remembers that he bought more condoms but they’re across the hall, didn’t do the teenage thing of sticking one in his wallet. 

He tries tell her before they get too far along but she shakes her head, telling him in between fucking his mouth with her tongue that they don’t need them. 

“I did the thing you did. Got tested.” He pulls backs at this, disengaging from her mouth entirely. “It’s perfectly fine if you still want to use them but, Roman, please don’t make me explain to you that I’m too old to get pregnant.”

The latter part doesn’t even register as a joke because he’s too busy being floored by what she’s offering him. The trust she’s handing him on a shiny silver platter, no apparent reservations. 

He pulls the glasses off her face, gently folding them on the console table beside them. Kisses her again but slower this time, doesn’t let her take over the pace, speed them back up. 

“Rome,” she says, when he’s kissing down her throat, undoing her wraparound blouse, and it’s the closest thing to a whine he’s ever heard from her. 

“We’ll get there,” he promises, and she scratches her nails down his back in retaliation for that, but he takes it in stride. Doesn’t let her shift his focus because he feels powerful now, important. Turned on but no longer desperately hard, not since that phone call in the car, his libido shifted into a lower gear, pleasantly idling like an engine as he touches Gerri, runs his mouth across her skin. 

He walks them back to her bedroom and promptly gets her bra off, bending his head and sucking a nipple into his mouth. 

“Please,” she says, pushing him back toward the bed. And he lets himself be pulled, both of them tumbling, but he quickly rolls on top of her, her arms pinned, his steady exploration continuing. 

“I rush through a lot of shit,” he says, voice muffled by the nipple against his mouth. “Don’t make me rush through you.”

“Roman.” It’s just breath when she says his name, her arms stilling now, no longer trying to commandeer him, and he spends minutes on end with his mouth on her chest and neck, her hips canting up, stealing the tiny bit of friction wherever she can get it.

“You’re very sneaky,” he says, pivoting his body off her as he kisses down her stomach. “Has anyone ever told you that?”

“Besides my ex-husband?” He would make her pay for that but she’s already panting, breath coming out in uneven puffs as he unzips her skirt, sliding it down. “Take your clothes off at least,” she orders. “I want to touch you.”

“Later,” he says, already kissing the thigh he’s exposed. “A very smart woman recently told me that not everything is about me.”

“You assho -“ She doesn’t finish the word because it turns into a moan when he nuzzles the center of her soaked panties. But he doesn’t linger, moving back to her leg and kissing down it, swirling his tongue on that one spot behind her knee, hearing her suck in a long breath. 

“You’re perfect,” he tells her. “Everything about you is perfect.”

“Far from true,” she huffs, but then he grazes her panties again and she makes an obscene groaning noise, and he thinks maybe he can go on doing this forever. 

“What’s this scar from?” It’s a pale crescent on her calf that’s the width of his fingernail and he traces it with her tongue, watches as she struggles to produce words. 

“Hiking. Iceland.”

“What happened?”

“One of the girls was straggling behind. I turned around to check on her. Didn’t - didn’t see a rock.”

“Must have fucking hurt,” he says, pulling down her panties, and the sound she makes goes right to his dick. “Do you have a vibrator?”

“Do I have a what? Why?”

He ends up behind her, her body draped over the bed, the little vibrator she owns propped underneath her, right where it can push against her clit whenever he thrusts. 

She’s so wet, everything is so fucking wet, and she’s moans so loudly when he pushes in the first time, he’s worried that he hurt her, but no, this is the opposite of pain. And she doesn’t say anything, not his name or the snide comments he normally gets off on, can apparently only make sounds of various pitch as he moves in and out of her, his hands on her hips, fingers flexing there every time his pelvis slaps against her ass. 

She comes so quickly he almost feels robbed when she’s clenching against him, but then the vibrator shifts underneath her, the sensation stronger against his dick in her vagina now, and pretty soon he’s losing his rhythm, his body leaning against her as he speeds up, her legs shaking underneath him. 

He leveraged himself so that he’s on top of her, his mouth on her back, and thinks that he’s speaking but he doesn’t know, can’t process anything but how close he is to coming and how hard her legs are shaking and how insanely good it feels to be this deep inside her, nothing between them. 

“Oh,” she says when he comes, one last thrust pushing into her, pinning her to the bed, and then she’s clenching so hard around his cock he stops breathing, his orgasm drawn out forever and forever. 

They lay like that for a while but then she shifts beneath him and he realizes she’s pinned between his weight and the hard plastic of the vibrator, rolls off her and to the side with a loud grunt. 

“Jesus,” Gerri murmurs sometime after that. Slowly rolls so that she’s against him, her ass pressed to his hip. 

“Not bad,” he says, and pretty soon they’re both snickering at that, his fingers combing through her hair.

“Most men feel so threatened by vibrators,”she says. Sounds like when she’s half asleep, her voice a little croaky. 

“That’s unfortunate,” he says. Doesn’t admit that he only learned to like them because they used to take the pressure off, no need to do things he didn’t want to if there was a little vibrating sidekick tucked in a nightstand. “That one’s invited to our party whenever you like.”

She rolls over and kisses him here, slow and a little sloppy, like she’s too destroyed to get her mouth to work properly. 

“That was exceptional,” she murmurs, curling into him. 

“You deserve only the best.” He floats it like a joke but he means it, really means it, and he’s struck here by how much better she deserves than him. 

“Of course I do,” she says, mirroring his tone. “Apparently I’m perfect.”

“You are,” he agrees, the lightness gone from his tone now, his forehead resting against hers, his eyes shut now. “Gerri, you really are.”

Albert comes home a little after nine and Gerri orders them dinner while Roman wrestles with Al on the floor. 

It’s actually not so much wrestling as Roman lying down on the floor of his apartment and letting Albert stand on him, trying lick his face over and over, but it makes them both happy, Albert wagging his whole damn body. 

“I’m sorry you have to keep sending him away,” Gerri says. 

“Stupid fucking press,” Roman mutters. Gets off the floor here and goes to feed Albert, paws skidding against the floor as he picks up the bowl.

“You’re going to Europe?” Gerri asks him, when they talk about their respective days. 

He hasn’t told her about the Kendall call yet and he doesn’t think he will tonight, doesn’t want to ruin the evening with talk about his family, Gerri feeling like she has to talk him out of what could be a very bad decision. 

“It’s only three days,” he says. “Gotta go grope up some people who want my money.”

“Shouldn’t they be doing the groping then?”

“I’d ask you to come with me, but I know your time spoken for,” he admits. Pours her a glass of wine and touches her hip when she moves past him, relieving him of her alcohol. 

“It is,” she says. “I should have stayed until ten tonight, gotten more done.”

“I’m sorry,” he says. Feels weirdly self-conscious and guilty now, like he’s taking too much. Demanding too much of her.

“Good Lord, why?” 

The food arrives, salads because Gerri fucking insisted, but the meal is nice and quiet, her leg pressed against his as they eat, and then he’s loading dishes while she wipes crumbs off the table. 

“I’m meeting Ken in the morning,” he says, fighting with the lower dish rack that always fucking catches, refusing to push in smoothly. “He said no lawyers.”

He expects her to advise him here, try to talk him out of it, and she comes around into the kitchen, pushing him gently away from the dishwasher so she can right whatever’s wrong with the rack. Pushes it smoothly in after only a moment. 

“Good luck,” she says as she straightens up. Rests her hand on his arm, her thumb moving back and forth. 

“Thanks,” he says and kisses her. Soft and slow, his hands cupping her face. 

. . .


	11. Chapter 11

He meets Kendall in a park in fucking Yonkers, on a bench in the shade because it’s already a million degrees outside. 

It feels like something out of _The Sopranos_ or _The Godfather_ when he first pulls up, Kendall waiting for him in jeans and a Mets shirt. But the reality is only flat and shitty; he doesn’t feel like he can hug his brother and he isn’t sure if he even wants to, is still worried because Ken looks like shit close up - maybe stress and lack of sleep but probably coke with some pills mixed in, God knows what fucking else. 

“You wanna go ahead and yell at me?” Ken says, after Roman sits down. “Get all that shit off your chest about the money you’re losing because of me?” 

“Fuck the money,” Roman sighs, eyes cast upward to a bird building something in a branch above them. Probably a nest, right? That’s the only shit birds build? “You didn’t have to do this alone. Go all fucking kamikaze.”

“I did have to,” Ken says immediately, clearly agitated before Roman even opened his mouth. “It isn’t just about me. I’m a subpar father, we all know that, but prison is prison and I can’t - What was I supposed to do? Just not see my kids for five years?” 

“Of fucking course not,” Roman grounds out, pissed as hell that Kendall’s just making assumptions. Him and Shiv and their fucking father, always assuming away about what it’s in his head when they have no idea. They have never had any idea. “I never would have backed that and a week ago, back when you were busy not answering my phone calls, I was trying to figure out how to run interference.” 

“Oh yeah?’” Ken says, just clearly being a dick and Roman wants to scream or kick him or do fucking something other than sit on this hot ass park bench, watching a bird build a home out of straw and twigs that will never survive the next summer storm.

It’s all so fucking pointless. 

“Yeah,” he parrots back. “I was trying to pin down our sweet little sister, was making some fucking progress, and then boom. You went on TV and Hindenburged Waystar with those fucking documents, and now Shiv’s pissed, won’t even talk about you. I can’t even imagine what ye old murder king is acting like in his fucking castle. Like, what the fuck were you thinking?” 

“You haven’t talked to dad?” 

“Of course I haven’t fucking talked to dad.” Roman scowls, kicking at the dirt underneath his seat. “The last time I saw him he called me a traitorous prick and strangely, I have not thought to send a ‘thank you’ card for my hostage experience and that fucking boat trip from hell.” 

“It got really shitty when you left,” Ken says. “On the boat. Everyone at each other's throats.”

“That’s what he does best,” Roman gestures widely. “But I left the boat, not you, you fucking idiot. You could have called me.” 

“I tried,” Ken reminds him. “You didn’t answer.”

“I was asleep,” Roman lies. Better that than admitting he was dick-deep in Gerri. “And I called you first thing the next morning when I woke up. And what is this, the fucking eigth grade? You gonna put my bra in the freezer next? Jesus Christ.” 

“So like,” Ken says, after a long pause. “Are we on opposite sides now? Enemies or whatever?” 

“Not yet,” Roman replies. “Not unless you make it that way.” He kicks the ground again. “It doesn’t have to be that way but you seem to always want it that way.” 

“I don’t,” Ken says after a beat. “I don’t want it that way.” 

“So keep your little knife out of my back and I’ll keep my knife out of yours, and if there’s a way I can help you, I will. I just have to be smart about it.” 

“And Shiv?” Kendall asks. Sounds gutted now but also angry and yeah, Roman knows how that feels. 

“Dad made her think it was you or Tom,” Roman shrugs. “I mean the guy’s a worthless sack of platitudes held together by questionable sweater vests, but he’s her husband and. . . I don’t fucking know. What would you have done if it was between Shiv or Rava? It’s shitty, it's all shitty, but so much of it is the old man’s smoke and mirrors routine.” 

He can tell that Ken doesn’t buy that, can tell by the way he looks away, working his jaw, but Roman honestly doesn’t know what to think about the Shiv stuff anymore. Knows better than to trust her or count on her, sure, but everything else makes his head fucking swim. 

“If I call you after this, it’ll be from a burner phone,” Kendall tells him. “Something that’ll be harder for ratface Sam to track down if they go through our shit.” 

“I look forward to answering calls from telemarketers and scammers from Nigeria on the off chance it’s you,” Roman drawls. Stands up here because his ass is so sweaty he’s worried his pants are going to start chafing any second. “And not for nothing, but keep your knife away from Gerri, too.”

“Your neighbor Gerri,” Ken smirking, “who you are not dating, but whose defense you will immediately come to?”

“Dad hates her,” Roman supplies, unamused. “And she’s way smarter than I am but -”

“Most people are smarter than you are.” 

“But she’s a friend,” he finishes, hands in his pockets now, “and Albert is quite fond of her, so I’d be forced to defend her, you see.” 

“You’re full of shit.” Ken stands up, groaning as he stretches his arms behind his back. 

“You going to your meetings?” Roman asks suddenly. “Seeing your shrink?” 

“Don’t do that shit,” Ken blows him off. So fucking typical. 

“Fuck you,” Roman says. “Go to a fucking meeting and call your shrink. Maybe hire a new one since the one you’ve been paying is clearly about as helpful as a fork in a bowl of soup.” 

“Fuck off,” Ken shoots back, and Roman glares him down as they walk to their respective cars. 

“You piece of shit,” Roman mutters, when Ken starts walking away, straight to his car without even stopping. “Come here and act like a human, for once in your useless life.” 

Kendall looks surprised when Roman goes to hug him, hugging him back after only a moment, and Ken still does that stupid bro pat when Roman pulls away, shaking his head because his older brother will always be lame, it’s like a fucking law of physics. 

“Talk later,” Ken waves.

“If Logan can poison your coke, he will,” Roman calls over his shoulder. Gives him a little salute. “Be careful who you get shit from or you’ll end up snorting rat pellets or whatever the fuck.” 

He says like a joke but he’s serious, they both know their father is more than capable. 

_How’d it go?_ Gerri texts him on the drive, and he sends a turd emoji back. Doesn’t feel much like dissecting it all, let alone over such a constricting medium. 

It’s a Saturday and she’ll be at the office most of the day, and he thinks maybe that’s better. They’ve seen a lot of each other in the last forty-eight hours and he knows he has a tendency to be clingy, even back when he complained to the women he was dating about needing space. He asked Tabitha to move in almost immediately, his therapist tsking and making that constipated face every time he’d bring the relationship up, and that all feels like such a colossal embarrassment now, so much of it regrettable and childish, and he doesn’t want to make that mistake again. 

As tempting as it is to text Gerri all day, rope her into dinner again, he wants to do better. Not implode things by being his usual human wrecking ball of a self, just careening around, desperate for someone to pay attention to him. 

He takes Al to the dog park later on in the afternoon, everyone there looking miserable in the heat, posers and idiots making small talk about business deals that all sound like bullshit. But that reminds him to confirm some arrangements for his trip to Berlin next week, as well as to follow up with a headhunter about the personal assistant he’s been meaning to hire since the last one quit. 

He should finally break down and invest in some office space too, not just mooch off the space afforded him by his lawyers and PR company, but the idea of doing that feels so permanent and constricting, he knows he’ll just keep pushing it off until he can’t anymore. Probably make it the next assistant’s problem. 

He orders sushi for dinner, a whole chef’s menu because he’s starving and barely ate all day, wants to throw some carbs and salty soy sauce on his feelings now. 

“No stealing the wasabi off the table again,” he warns Albert. “You threw up everywhere last time.” 

He buzzes the delivery person up but it seems to take a while, longer than it should, and when he opens the door to check on his food, Gerri’s walking his way, his order hanging from her arm and her work bag slung over the other. 

“Stealing my dinner, are you?” But he’s already smiling, happy to see her, even as she frowns here. 

“He was an idiot,” she says, handing him his food. “An overly chatty idiot who thought nothing of handing your order off to someone else.” 

“Good thing you were there to intervene,” he says, but she doesn’t smile at that. “You okay?” 

“Long day,” she shrugs. “Kind of a shitty one.” 

“Sushi?” he offers, dangling the bag dramatically. “Martini made by your favorite bartender?” She seems to debate it and he immediately feels annoyed with himself here. All day spent trying to curb his impulses, act like a fucking adult, and as soon as he sees her he’s clutching at her like a goddamn teddy bear. “Maybe another time,” he says. Leans forward and kisses her cheek, gives her a wink before he pops back inside. 

He pours himself water with dinner because he’s had way too much caffeine today, doesn’t think putting alcohol on top of his anxiousness will result in anything pleasant. While he’s in the kitchen Albert pinches two pieces of sashimi along with some pickled ginger he’s quick to spit out onto the floor, Roman muttering as Al hides in his crate, wolfing down the stolen sushi with not a single shred of remorse. 

“Asshole,” he sighs, sitting down at the table. 

There’s a quick knock on the door and then the sound of the lock turning, Gerri turning up in the doorway in soft clothes she didn’t wear to work, sandals without any heel. 

“I’m not sure if that dinner offer was sincere or you were being polite,” she admits. “But I’m still going to take you up on it.” 

“Of course it was sincere,” he frowns, puzzled at that. He moves to get up and she motions for him to stay seated, going into his kitchen and rummaging around, returning to the dining room with a plate and a glass of wine. 

She doesn’t sit next to him, which is a little weird, but she seems off today, probably exhausted, and he decides not to hose her down with his usual flood of barely intelligible words. 

“My case is probably wrapping up,” she announces, when they’re almost through with dinner, Roman already regretting the silence but not knowing how to break it. 

“Settlement?” he guesses, and she doesn’t respond, probably can’t tell him. “Isn’t that a good thing?” 

“Having the worst days of one’s life examined in open court is never an enjoyable thing for my clients,” she allows. “And every thing that can be said about a plaintiff, credibly or otherwise, will absolutely be said.”

“But?” 

“Settling just means money changing hands and NDA’s being signed, and most of the time nothing ever changes. Monsters get to keep being monsters and it’s all. . . Sometimes I forget what the point of it all even is.” 

“That sucks,” he says. Doesn’t feel like he has a right to say anything else, not being who he is. Being raised in what he was raised in. 

“Patron saint of lost causes,” she smiles, but it’s an empty smile, no joy behind it, and it pains him, makes him feel powerless. “You didn’t say much about the Kendall stuff.” 

“Could have been worse,” he decides. Fidgets in his seat here, foot kicking the table leg. “He looks like shit and dad is no doubt plotting to bury him, but we agreed to a non-aggression pact, the Partridge family goes Cold War or some shit, and then we hugged and went on our merry little ways.” 

“That doesn’t sound awful,” she says. “Considering.” 

“Um, I told him you were covered under the non-aggression pact,” he says and then chugs his water. 

“You what?” She sets her glass of wine down here, blue eyes piercing him over the table, and he thinks he should have just kept that to himself, but he knows she’d mind that more, tactical information being withheld from her and whatever the fuck.

“Apparently Logan has a bone to pick with my association with you, so I thought it relevant to note while Ken and I were laying out terms for not clubbing each other to death.” 

“I wish you’d consulted me on that first,” Gerri sighs, looking put off, and he doesn’t know what to make of that. 

“He already knows we’re friends,” he says and she scoffs at that, which is fucking annoying, “and my family has a long history of sniping innocent bystanders, so yeah, I brought it up.” 

“I can handle myself,” she says, standing up here, dirty dish in her hand. 

“I never said you couldn’t,” he defends, his voice doing that high pitched thing he hates. “Why are you mad about this?” 

“It’s hard to keep claiming we’re only friends if you go around confirming what people probably already suspect.” 

“One person,” he says, slouching back in his chair dramatically while she sets the plate in the sink with a loud clatter. “Who happens to my brother.” 

“Who happens to be a Roy,” she says, and that’s just really obnoxious because yes, his family absolutely sucks, but that doesn’t change the fact that she knew who he was when this started and she slept with him anyway, took his key and made herself cozy in his home and his goddamn life knowing exactly what and who he is. 

“I’m sorry I thought to make my loyalties clear,” he says, getting up and heading to the bathroom. 

He takes his time. Washes his hands twice. But she’s still standing in his kitchen when he gets out and he’s mostly relieved at this but also frustrated. He doesn’t know why she stays when she could just go home, not deal with him if she finds him so incredibly stupid and shortsighted. 

“My daughter’s coming into town on Monday,” she announces. 

“Okay,” he says. Sits on the floor next to Al’s crate and coaxes him out, not liking where this is going, anxiety vibrating in his chest. “I assume I should make myself scarce when she’s here. Not turn up at your door naked, a martini balanced on my dick.” 

“Emily is the older one,” she says, coming into the living room. “Shrewd. A lot like me. We… do not have the easiest relationship.” 

“Well that’s clearly a mark against her,” Roman says, sensing the shift, “since you’re fucking delightful.”

“And so easy to talk to,” Gerri drawls, sitting down on the couch. “Never in a bad mood.” 

“So this mini me of yours, you’re worried she’ll sniff us out?” He’s petting Albert here, his face turned away from her, but he can hear her shift where she sits, readjusting herself. 

“A little,” she says. “Roman, it isn’t you. She and I just have a hard time getting along even under the best of circumstances. I think… Well, the girls caught the brunt of things during my divorce.” 

“That was years ago,” he says, though it’s a false kind of reassurance. He still remembers everything his parents screamed at each other, all the things his father said about him and that his mother was more than happy to repeat, trying to poison the well. 

But he can’t imagine Gerri ever acting like that. 

“She was in college during the divorce,” she says. “Far enough away to miss things but close enough to decide it was my fault.” 

He gets up off the floor here, coming over to sit beside her. He debates leaving some space between them but he doesn’t, plunks down next to her, his side flush with hers, her body immediately sagging against him. 

“You never really talk about being married,” he notes. 

“It was fine in the beginning and shitty in the middle. Awful at the end.” She reaches for the wine glass she’s sat on the coffee table. “Not much to tell beyond that.” 

“Hm,” he says because he knows a load of bullshit when he hears it, but also knows better than to push her. It would be a bad idea no matter what, spectacularly stupid now, given the mood she arrived home in. 

“I was angry for a long time,” she says. “And I think that’s how she still sees me. An angry woman who worked a lot and left her father.” 

“Well,” he begins, tapping his fingers against her leg, “I was supposed to go to Berlin in a week. I can move it up, leave Monday morning.” 

“You don’t have to do that,” she says quickly, but he’s already pulling his phone out, sending emails. 

“It might be easier,” he says. Less ways for him to fuck up, he means. “Just remove myself from the immediate area so you can’t accidentally trip and fall onto my dick while your daughter is here.” 

She snorts at that, then falls quiet for a bit, Roman typing out messages. 

“Would you be back by Friday?” The last philharmonic performance is that night, but he assumed he’d be going alone if her daughter was under foot, and strangely the idea of going alone has little appeal now. 

“I can be,” he nods. “Will she be gone by then, or are you planning on sneaking out of the house, James Bonding it up?” 

“She leaves Friday morning for DC, so no sneaking required.” 

“Too bad,” he sighs, leaning back into the couch, his arm around her now. “You’d be a fucking excellent sneak.” 

“You called me sneaky only yesterday,” she reminds him, and he remembers now, her panting and desperate beneath him, trying to rub her body against him. 

Her cheeks go a little pink here and he delights in that. Presses his mouth to the corner of hers, a closed mouth kiss that isn’t meant to start anything, and she hums in the back of her throat. 

His phone beeps with a text confirming the change to the Berlin meeting, which means someone’s going to wake up in a few hours to find that their Sunday’s been blown to bits, but that’s not his problem. They can get their shit together on the double if they really want his money. 

“I’m officially fucking off to Europe on Monday,” he says, putting his phone down. “So your secret is safe for now, Miss Kellman.” 

“Hm,” she says, but doesn’t sound thrilled. Taps her hand against the one he has on her knee, like she’s keeping time while she thinks. “Four days without Roman Roy pestering me. Whatever will I do?”

‘Miss me’ he wants to say, but that sounds too desperate and he doesn’t think he could manage a blustering tone when he says it. 

“Eat salads to your heart’s content,” he says, and she sits up here, probably standing off the couch, but instead she pivots over him, straddling his lap, knees on either side of him. 

“You would think I’d be satisfied for a while, after yesterday.,” she says dryly, and he doesn’t hesitate here, hands immediately sliding under the cotton top she’s wearing. 

“Maybe you’re a sex robot,” he says, fingers working at her bra. “Have you considered that?” 

“Well you’ve certainly found my on button, haven’t you?” That one makes him laugh against her, mouth pressed to her neck, but soon enough he’s kissing her mouth, her hair falling over his face, and then she’s making that humming sound in the back of her throat again, the vibration soft where their mouths connect. 

They kiss for a long time, nothing more aside from him touching her under her shirt, palming her breasts as she leans over him, his hands eventually migrating to her ass. 

“Let me take you to dinner on Friday,” he says, his mouth trailing across her jaw. “Someplace quiet. No sign of press or needle-dick photographers.” 

“Okay,” she agrees after a moment, one of his hands slipping back under her shirt, running a thumb over a nipple as she kisses him, her forehead creased like she’s concentrating, performing delicate work.

. . . 

Berlin will never be one of his favorite cities, but the beer is good and there’s no shortage of Indian food that’ll burn his face off. He tries to content himself with meetings, spends his evenings eating lamb vindaloo that makes his cheeks flush and his forehead sweat. Doesn’t let himself text Gerri except one line the first day, saying he arrived safely, and after that radio silence. 

He’s in a meeting with a director of marketing, the guy’s presentation going long, proving boring, and his mind starts to wander. 

Maybe it’s so hard to find a balance with Gerri because of the proximity? He knows he should slow himself down, not get too wrapped up in her so fast, but it’s hard when she’s right there, a golden carrot always dangling on a stick, just across the hall. 

It’s only been sleeping together for two weeks and when he thinks about that it’s strange, awfully jarring. 

They’ve only been doing whatever it is that they’re doing for two weeks and he did that thing with Ken, basically saying he’d defend her honor or whatever. No wonder Gerri went weird on him for that, making some grand, idiotic proclamation when she doesn’t even want to be photographed next to him. It’s too soon for shit like that, but he never seems to get that stuff right, always skipping five chapters ahead.

Assuming there even _are_ other chapters, since the first time they slept together he basically told her they could be friends who just have sex. 

“Fuck me in the eye,” he sighs dramatically. Falls back on his hotel bed.

He’s worried himself into a real hole by the time he flies home. Comes back Thursday rather than Friday morning because his meetings wrapped up early and he just wants to go home, pet his dog. 

The pet sitter meets him at the airport, which is a logistical nightmare, but eventually he’s in the car heading home, dog and luggage beside him, sun setting over the skyline he grew up looking at. 

He sees Gerri and her daughter out on the street when he pulls up. Marvels at that because it’s been months since he deliberately tried to run into her and yet they’re always crossing paths now, like those irregular solar orbits he never bothered to learn, always paid someone else to take his tests in the three astronomy classes he took.

He hangs back, sending texts in the car until enough time has passed that he’s sure he won’t get stuck with them in the elevator. Pulls his sunglasses down over his eyes, doubting there are any lingering photographers, but who even knows. It all depends on who’s recently gotten out of a cab without wearing panties.

He hears Gerri’s voice when he gets into the lobby, when it’s too late to turn around or hide. 

“You always say that but it’s true, you had different rules for her than me.” It takes him a few seconds to realize that it’s not actually Gerri talking but her daughter, the voice so similar it’s fucking eerie. And then he reaches the elevator and he sees them both standing there, two nearly identical faces with mouths pressed into thin lines. 

Gerri does a double take when she sees him, but he tries to hang back, not crowd her, even though Albert is straining on his leash the second he spots her. 

“We’ll wait for the next one,” he says with what he hopes is a polite smile, Gerri’s daughter holding the elevator door for him. 

“Suit yourself,” she says and let’s the door shut, Gerri standing behind her and staring at Roman the whole time, an unreadable expression on her face.

He orders a salad for dinner and has a good chuckle at that. Books himself in with his trainer in the morning, confirms with his headhunter about a final interview with the new assistant in a few days, wades through a pile of emails until his dinner comes and then eats it on the couch, a beer in his hand, television on for noise as Albert snuffles at his feet, hoping for food droppings. 

He offers Al a piece of lettuce, the dog chewing it reluctantly, staring at Roman like he’s been betrayed, and Roman pets his head, tuts that they can’t have everything they want all the time. 

He’s tired when he goes to sleep, dropping off immediately, and his alarm is a rude awakening, his first thought to no-show for his training appointment. He drags himself out of bed instead, pours coffee down his throat until he feels like a human being and then catapults himself into the shower. 

He runs into Gerri when he’s heading out because of course she does. She’s dressed for work, no sign of her daughter when they get on the elevator. 

“How was your trip?” she asks him.

“Decent. How was your visit?”

“Horrible,” she grimaces, closing her eyes briefly. “Thank God she lives in California along with her sister.” He smiles at that. “Are we still on for tonight?”

“We are,” he nods. No matter what, he wants to take her to dinner, feel her hand resting on his leg in between clapping at the phil. 

“Care for a ride?” she asks once they’re out front. His car service isn’t here yet and hers is, but his will no doubt be here any second. 

“Won’t be long,” he shakes his head, a little puzzled. “But thanks.”

He expects her to glide off here but she doesn’t, stands staring at him as if she’s trying to pick him out of a lineup. 

“Pick me up at 6:15,” she says and gets into her car. Leaves her door propped open, her head inclined in a way that compels him to walk over. 

She kisses him when he leans in to ask her what’s up - kisses him right there, out on the street, traffic whizzing by on one side and the morning sun on his neck. 

It’s quick and she tries to sit back afterward, but he grabs her face gently, pulling her back. Kisses her again, her glasses digging ever so slightly into his face. 

“See you later” he says, his car pulling up as he backs away, a small smile on Gerri’s face when she shuts the door. 

There’s no press hanging around this morning, none he can see anyway. They always lose interest quickly, his face unlikely to draw half as many clicks as some coked out actress cheating on her husband, and for that he’s perennially grateful. Feels a little more upbeat now, even if he doesn’t know what to make of that thing with Gerri a minute ago, her actions clearly crossing the line she’s set for them. But he thinks it’s probably just a one-off, something she’ll regret later, and he doesn’t himself get his hopes up here.

He doesn’t have much to do today, he gave himself an easy re-entry in case he was jet lagged, but around eleven Shiv texts him about getting lunch and he doesn’t have any reason to say no. 

They meet at the same hole in the wall sushi place they always meet at, the conversation more stilted for the lack of alcohol and the fact that he isn’t really into the food, still burned out on sushi after his dinner last night.

“You ever feel like you have no idea what the fuck your doing?” he asks her. Draws patterns in his soy sauce with his chopsticks, his free hand stilling the little plate when it starts to migrate. 

“Never,” Shiv says and he doesn’t look up at that, should have known better than to try. She clears her throat. “I thought your business stuff was going great?”

“That’s all fine,” he shrugs one shoulder. Adds wasabi to his little design, spinning the chopstick in his hand. “I’m taking names and fucking people in the ass left and right at work. It’s everything else that always goes to shit.”

“Well, when it comes to my marriage I’m a meandering clusterfuck half the time,” Shiv admits, and he looks up at her here, watches her hide her face behind a giant cup of tea. “Even when I’m happy I’m not happy. Have to find a way to mess it up.”

“Fucking Roy disease,” Roman says to that, and Shiv doesn’t react, just stares off into the distance behind him. “Like, even when we have something good we have to find a way to break it a little.”

“Is this about Gerri?” she asks suddenly. 

“No and fuck you,” he replies smoothly, going back to his soy sauce art. 

“You’re a child who plays with his food and she’s one of the most highly respected lawyers on the Eastern Seaboard. What is she even doing hanging out with you?”

“Beats me,” he admits. “How’d you trap Tom?”

“Sex and clever insults aimed at his parents.” He laughs at that and she giggles with him, shoulders hunching up as her nose wrinkles. “Seriously though, what’s the deal with you and Gerri?”

“I don’t know,” he answers honestly. “But my dog likes her and I’m happier when she’s around. She doesn’t lie to me, pull any of the shit our family does.” 

“That’s nice,” she says and he doesn’t comment further, let’s the silence stretch. “Sometimes I wish I could turn back the clock with Tom. Start out fresh without any of my mistakes.”

“Like the ex-boyfriend at your wedding?” he asks. ”The one who looked at you like you two were definitely still fucking?”

“Fuck me,” Shiv says, cringing now, hands over her eyes. “God, Rome. I told Tom I wanted an open marriage on our wedding night.”

“Fucking _what_?”

“I know, I know. Talk about a narcissist.”

“Did you rip his dick off too? Tell him you’d keep it in a bell jar for him to borrow back whenever he’s been a good boy?”

“ _No_.” But she’s laughing hard now, they both are, a server floating by to top off their drinks as they snicker, Shiv kicking him under the table. 

“How does it feel to be the bigger fuck up?” he asks her, still laughing, Shiv hiding her face in her hands. 

“You can’t tell anyone that,” she says. 

“I won’t.”

“Not even Gerri.”

“I won’t,” he says, getting serious here. “Really, I won’t.”

“Okay,” she breathes out. Rubs at her smudged mascara because she’s been laughing so hard she cried a little. “Well, I promise to leave the Gerri stuff alone if dad goes sniffing around it. Maybe pull a few favors with the dwindling press connections I have.”

“Oh yeah?” He’s wanted her assurances on that score but knew better than to ask. Didn’t want to court Gerri’s ire by bringing it up either.

“It’s none of my business and you seem to like her. So you keep declining opportunities to make my husband cry and I’ll leave Gerri alone. Maybe run a little interference.”

“Thanks,” he says. 

He pays and she lets him, and he offers to drop her off at her next stop. 

“Okay,” she says. She reapplies her makeup in the car, Roman waiting until her lipstick is almost done before he jostles her elbow hard. “Asshole,” she hisses and hits him.

“No amount of lip liner will fix what a fuck up you are,” he says as they wrestle, and she bites him on the arm for that. 

. . .

He changes at home, wears something a little nicer this time because they’re skipping the whole cab routine, will probably end up getting photographed at the philharmonic no matter what. 

He sends a text to Gerri confirming the pickup time and she replies immediately. Tells him to just idle downstairs rather than coming up. He doesn’t want to read into that, it’s too easy to do and he knows his mind has been playing tricks on him all week, so he texts her back instead. Let’s himself bathe in the excitement of a night out on the town with her.

 _Good day?_ he asks her.

 _Hardly,_ she replies. _But certainly about to get better._

Traffic is bad, worse than usual, and they don’t pull up until 6:23, no sign of Gerri out front. But then he sees her gliding out of the building a minute later, her body wrapped in black silk that catches the afternoon light, shining as she walks, and his breath stutters in his chest. 

“I was starting to think you had a better offer,” she complains waspishly when she gets in. 

“Not possible,” he replies, openly eye fucking her. “Though I feel really fucking robbed that I didn’t get to zip that dress up.” 

She checks the car’s privacy partition but it’s already up, he’s not that much of an idiot. 

“I thought about it but there’s no telling where that would lead. Certainly not to us being on time to the performance.” He has no room to disagree here, already picturing how best to extract her from her dress. “And stop looking at me like that,” she chides. “We have an entire evening to get through first.”

“Maybe we’re both sex robots,” he smirks. Leans over and grabs the granola bar he’s stashed away for her, tossing it gently in her lap.

“I hope this isn’t your grand dinner plan,” she says, but she’s staring at it now, turning it over. 

“You probably didn’t have time to eat and the earliest we can manage dinner is probably 9:15, so.”

He got the kind she likes, has seen them filed away in her pantry and one time in her purse, remembered the brand and the flavor. 

“Thank you,” she says, and when he looks back at her she’s staring at him. 

“I’ll be fine for hours,” he says, moving the conversation right along. “Late lunch with Shiv.”

“And how was that?” She tears at the wrapper in a way that makes a neat slice, a crisp forty-five-degree angle, and he looks down at her manicured nails. Reaches over to hand her the napkins he has, try to save her dress from falling crumbs.

“Fine,” he says. “We do better with booze lubricating the conversation but we managed anyway. Established that we’re both clusterfucks when it comes to things that aren’t related to work.”

“You aren’t a clusterfuck,” she frowns, nibbling away at her snack. 

“A generous lie,” he smiles. Watches her snap the granola bar into square segments as she eats them. “Do we want to talk about that thing this morning?” 

“What thing,” she says dismissively. Motions for him to hand her the bottle of water that’s idling by his leg. 

“That thing where you kissed me in public.”

“It wasn’t public, I was in the car.”

“With the door open,” he points out, trying not to get frustrated here, his voice rising a little. “Look, I’m hardly complaining, but you’re drawing a very hazy line here and I’m trying really hard not to run afoul of it.” 

“This point has occurred to me,” she says. “Repeatedly.” She sips her water, playing with the cap for a moment. “I haven’t been very fair.”

“I’m not upset.”

“You were very quiet in Berlin,” she shoots back, glancing sideways at him.

“Your daughter was here. I was trying to be fucking respectful. Give you space.” He eyebrows call him a liar here and he mostly is, but he’s not going to cop to it now, tell her that he worried himself to death for no fucking real reason. “I have a bad habit of smothering people. I did it with Tabitha. I’m trying to be better with you.”

“I’m not Tabitha,” she says. “And I’m decidedly alright with you darkening both my door and my text messages.”

He should respond to that properly, with words or feelings or something, but all he can think to do is reach across and kiss her, her lips tacky with the red lipstick she’s wearing. 

“Good thing I wore smudge proof lipstick,” she says as she pulls out a hand mirror. But there’s an amused lilt to her voice now, the car slowing as they edge closer to Lincoln Center. 

“You sure you're okay with this?” he asks. Mutters a curse at the press lined up on the carpet outside. “We can ditch out now if you aren’t.”

“It’s the last one of the season,” she reminds him. “You’ll be sad to miss it.”

“I’ll be fine having dinner with you,” he says. Stares at her disbelieving expression, her eyes pinning him to the seat. “Gerri, it's fucking okay if you don’t want to do this, we can just have dinner somewhere and go home.”

“Nope,” she says, smoothing down her dress as the driver comes around to her door. “We’re going in. But maybe stop fucking staring at me like you’re waiting for the moment you can poke your dick in.”

“So don’t look at you at all, got it.”

. . .

“Shiv offered to give us cover,” he says in the lobby at intermission. 

There’s no one immediately around them, a group of people noisily chatting to their right. The first half was mostly Strauss, not his favorite by a long shot, and he feels a little tired, maybe belatedly jet lagged. But Gerri is beside him, the smell of her perfume in his nostrils as he sat in the dark, and he counts that as a good outing, no matter the boring bits of music. Probably helps his mood that the press outside basically ignored him.

“She offered that out of the goodness of her heart, did she?” 

“I didn’t bring it up,” he promises. “We were already talking about other stuff. Life stuff.”

“Life stuff,” she repeats, sarcasm dripping. “Alright, well now I need a drink.”

Roman looks for his favorite bartender, do their usual little work around, but when he spots the guy he isn’t behind the bar, he’s off to the side, stacking glassware and filling buckets with ice. 

“Looks like your friend’s been demoted,” Gerri sighs. “No speedy martini tonight.”

“What? That can’t be right, that guy’s the best, why in the hell would anyone demote _him_?"

“Maybe his little magic routine pissed off another season ticket holder. Not like management can take it out on a patron, let alone you.” She shifts on her feet here. “You think we can get through that line in ten minutes?”

“But that’s not fair,” Roman says, still stuck to the same spot and watching the guy miserably load heavy glassware, stack after stack. 

“Honey, that’s life,” Gerri says, a dry smile on her face that Roman finds totally baffling. 

“Do you have a card on you? A pen or something?” He checks his own pockets, but there’s nothing and he doesn’t even have business cards made up, always hands out his business manager’s, sometimes his lawyer’s. 

“What on earth are you doing?” she asks but hands him one of her business cards and a pen anyway. Makes annoyed noises when he makes a beeline over to where the kid's slaving away. 

Roman meanders through some kind of apology, scribbling a phone number on the back of Gerri’s card and thrusting it at him. “You want a job anywhere in New York, you call that number. I’ll tell them to look out for you. It’s Ben, right?”

“Yeah,” the guy says. Shakes Roman’s hand, looking confused as hell. “Thank you, Mister Roy.”

“That’s my dad,” he says. “I’m just Roman. For real, call that fucking number, okay?” 

He sends a text to his business manager with Ben’s name and number as they stand there, awkwardly talking until Gerri appears at his side, a polite smile on her face.

“I’m going to steal him back now,” she announces. Hands Roman the scotch she’s apparently procured for him, steering him away with a hand to his arm. “What was all that about?”

“Gonna get the kid another job,” he shrugs. “Since I probably fucked this one up for him.”

“Forgive me, but I have a hard time believing you haven’t gotten any number of people fired. What’s so different about this one?”

“I guess that I can fix it,” he says, his hand on her lower back as they wind through the crowd. 

The second half drags because of some pretty fucking questionable Schumann selections, he can feel Gerri sagging in her chair, her knee pressed against his, but then it’s over and they’re in the car, her hand on his knee. 

“You want to just order in?” he offers because she looks dead on her feet now, but she shakes her head. 

“I know you have a reservation,” she says, her hand sliding up his thigh, nails digging in a little.

“Mean,” he laughs, taking a deep breath. “Fucking mean.” 

“Very,” she agrees. Leans over and kisses his jaw, quickly pulling away. 

Dinner is Italian, a little place that’s out of the way, white table cloths and crystal glasses sparking in the low light. 

She hums beside him, obviously pleased by the choice when they walk in. 

“Can we just order the whole menu?” he asks, desperately hungry now, Gerri greedily scanning their choices, glasses pushed down her nose. 

“Let’s just get the tasting menu,” she says and he nods. 

He really hopes they’re gonna bring bread out, but it doesn’t look like that kind of place. 

They order, handing off their menus, Gerri staring at him across the table now. 

“So. You were talking to your sister about me.” 

“We were actually talking about her and Tom,” he says. Feels grateful when the server appears almost immediately with their first two glasses of wine. “She asked what our deal was. I told her I didn’t know.”

“So you lied,” she smiles. 

“Did I?” he asks, feels helpless as he looks across the table at her. “I mean I know what I feel, but. . .”

“My marriage was pretty miserable,” she says, after a long pause, Roman twisting in the wind. “It looked good on paper but then my career took off faster than his and all of the child rearing still fell to me, and then I had a husband who’d fucked his way through half the secretarial pool at his firm and was completely useless as a support system.”

“Fucking Christ,” he cringes. Doesn’t know the bastard’s name but would happily pay to have both his legs broken now.

“And then, for the pleasure of being rid of him,” Gerri squints, “I got to part with half my assets. Earn the ire of both my daughters, one of whom is still very much nursing the grudge.”

“Unappetizing to consider doing any of that again,” he says. Knows already where this is going. 

“I don’t have a lot of promises left in me,” she admits. “Not at my age. But I like being at your dinner table and I like having you in my bed, and I’m willing to tolerate some unpleasant scrutiny if it means I can continue on in your company.” She sits back in her chair, their server arriving with their first course and then disappearing again. “I’d understand if that’s not enough for you.”

“It’s enough,” he says, picking up his fork with a nod. Knows it to be true. 

Their conversation meanders after that, mostly to far less serious topics, though he does learn she’s originally from the Midwest. 

“No shit,” he says, trying to hold in his guffaw.

“You can’t tell anyone,” she hurriedly says, holding up her knife, and he dissolves into a giggle fit at the implied threat. 

“You and my brother-in-law,” he snickers. “You’ll have so much to talk about at family dinners.” He regrets that as soon as he says it, but she only smirks, rolling her eyes. 

“Just keep me away from that dipshit Connor and it’ll be fine.”

He’s so full of food by the time dessert comes, a little bit drunk from all the wine, but they both try the chocolate cake, Gerri pulling a face that wakes his dick right the fuck up. 

“You just made your orgasm face at that cake,” he accuses. 

“I did not,” she gasps, her voice a little louder than normal. 

Maybe he isn’t the only who’s wine drunk.

“You fucking did,” he says, napkin balled up in his hand. “I’ve been thrown over for a fucking piece of seven layer cake.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she sniffs. “The cake can't make me a martini and it certainly can’t bring me a granola bar. It’s only a one time thing.”

It’s tempting to grope her up in the car, but she looks so lovely, the diamond studs in her ears occasionally refracting the light that stream by outside, and she deserves better than to be pawed at through her dress, his clammy hands scrabbling at her. 

“Will you show me what you’ve done with the Hauffman apartment?” she asks him as they ride up in the elevator, her arm looped through his.

“I don’t know what I’m doing with it yet,” he says quickly, before she can dig in. “I really did buy it so we wouldn’t have another neighbor.” 

“I figured as much,” she admits. “But I know you’ve had some demo done and I’ve been curious. It was pretty claustrophobic before, all those small rooms of his.” 

“You think the building would let us install additional security access to our floor?” he asks suddenly. “If I told them I’d pay for it all?” 

“You don’t even lock your door half the time, but you want additional security between the elevator and your apartment?” 

“Not mine,” he says, leading the way out of the elevator. “Yours.” He hears her momentarily stop mid-stride at that. “You’re the one who sues all the nasty people, is disliked by the Logan Roy’s of the world, et-fucking-cetera. No shortage of security concerns to be had.” 

He can feel her staring here, her eyes tunneling into his back like fucking lasers, but he just keeps shuffling down the hall and then fumbles with his keys, the bottom lock proving a stubborn bitch to get open. 

“Wow,” she says, when he opens the door. “How did you manage to get all this done without it causing an ungodly racket for days?” 

“They were incentivized,” he says. Doesn’t bother explaining beyond that as they walk into the massive living room, an entire wall of windows wrapping around the corner, city lights shining in. 

None of the light switches work in the living room, the panels all removed, exposed wires coming out, but he can see well enough without them. Guides her around a pile of rubble he isn’t sure she notices.

“He had a better view than either of us,” she says, sounding kind of pissed off now. “I didn’t realize that.” 

“Well he’s dead now,” Roman reminds her, but she doesn’t look the least bit guilty, the petty bitch. “Oh hey, I left something in the fridge for whenever you popped over.” He hopes it’s still chilled, isn’t sure what is and isn’t connected in here these days. 

He pulls out the bottle of champagne and glass with a flourish, Gerri looking incredulous beside him. 

“One glass?” she says. “You sure this wasn’t supposed to be your solitary victory party at having me surrounded on all sides?”

“There were two glasses,” he admits . “But I fucking shattered the second one, hit it against the fridge by accident. And then I kind of… forgot to come back over.” 

“That tracks,” she says snidely, and he flips her off. Pops the bottle open with little effort and none of his usual dramatic flair. “I might be on the floor if I drink that.” 

“I can think of things to do with you on the floor,” he says sweetly. Fills the glass and hands it to her. 

“How quickly things go downhill,” she sighs, setting her purse on the counter. Pauses to sip the champagne. “All you wanted at first was to stick your tongue between my legs and now I get offered a fuck on a floor littered with exposed concrete.” 

“Well the marble hasn’t arrived yet,” he notes, and she giggles at that, a hand over her mouth to keep the champagne in. 

“My, my,” he smirks. “You are drunk, aren’t you?” 

“Only a little,” she tells him. 

“No consent issues then?” 

“Depends what I’m consenting to, I suppose.” 

He kisses her swiftly, his hands yanking her forward by her hips, but she’s quick to match his pace, her hands pushing off his jacket as he backs them up, pins her against the counter, his mouth latched onto her neck, her fingers undoing his pants. 

“You said you were too old to fuck on a counter,” he reminds her, before she shuts him up by way of her tongue in his mouth. 

Her dress is a fucking Rubik's cube, he can’t even find the zipper, but isn’t so tight that he can’t work it up, the silk bunching around her waist now, maybe tearing, but he doesn’t care. He’ll buy her ten more just like it if she wants. 

“Guess I changed my mind.” Her voice is deeper, breathy, and he knows she wants it, can smell her from where he’s bending down, pulling her panties off, the lace falling to her ankles. 

It’s an awkward angle, the counter is lower than the one in his kitchen and she doesn’t lie back, her ass propped on the edge, her hands splayed on his shoulders for support when he spreads her legs and licks her. 

“You couldn’t even bother to text me for three days,” she hisses, his tongue circling her clit. “Not even a single phone call with you panting away in my ear. So fucking selfish, Roman.” 

He adds his fingers after that, two right off the bat, Gerri gasping above him, nails digging into his shoulders so hard that it hurts, pain vibrating out in perfect symmetry. 

“You kissed me in public,” he reminds her, pulling his mouth away and standing up, his underwear yanked down. “You couldn’t fucking wait. Had to risk everyone knowing that I’ve had my dirty little dick inside you.” 

“Fuck,” she whines when he pushes into her, her ass teetering off the counter now, his hands gripping her waist to hold her up, the point of one of her heels digging into his calf. 

“Everyone’s going to find out,” he grunts as he thrusts into her. “Every shitty lawyer in the city is going to know that you come home and do this, let me shove my tongue inside you. Come inside you because you’re too fucking perfect, you’re too fucking perfect and I always want it.” 

“Please,” she arches into him, her head thrown back. “Please, oh, just like that.” 

He’s going to come at any moment, it’s too good, she feels too sublime to be fucking real, and he rears back twice, slamming into her at the same angle and then pulling her forward when he comes, his pelvic bone pushing into her, and apparently it’s enough, her legs wrapping around him, fucking milking him as one of her hands claws the shit out of his back. 

“Fuck, did I hurt you?” she asks when he sets her down, both of them standing on shaky legs. 

“Maybe,” he says, his right shoulder stinging like a bitch now, clearly some broken skin lurking beneath his shirt. 

“I’m sorry,” she says and kisses him, but they’re both smiling, teeth bumping as their mouths meet. 

“We’re a fucking disaster,” he says. “Both of us. Jesus Christ.” 

“I don’t know about that,” she hums. Presses her face to his shirt even though it feels soaked through with sweat, clinging to his skin uncomfortably. “Felt pretty spot on to me.” 

“It did,” he agrees. Kisses along her hairline now, the salt and sweat mixing with her perfume, her hair waving up, and God, he wants to fuck her all over again, right from the beginning. 

The zipper of her dress is a hidden, one of those weird side zip things, but he finds it now, tugging it down, patient when it snags where it's bunched up, his hand smoothing the fabric before he drags the zipper lower, pulling it free. 

“I have to go to DC next month,” she says. Sucks in a breath when her dress falls to the floor and he dips his head, tongue running along the damp skin below her collarbone. “A gala I go to every year.” 

“Sounds awfully fucking waspy.” He pulls her slip down, one thin strap at a time, her eyes looking large and dark in the low light, obviously tracking him. 

“Painfully,” she drawls. Blinks slowly when he palms her breasts, his thumbs rubbing in slow circles. “Come with me. Be my arm candy.” 

“Can we do this in the car on the way there?” he asks her, his mouth on her neck. 

“No,” she says, gasping when he nips her ear. “Mmm maybe.” 

“I’ll add it to my calendar,” he promises. “Cut my hair. Maybe even wax my balls.” 

There’s blood smeared across his shoulder when he gets his shirt off, a crescent shaped scratch that he’ll stare at in the mirror for the next week, smirking every time he sees it, but for now Gerri’s apologizing, worrying they should go back, get something on the wound. 

“Later,” he urges, pressing her into the counter again, her heels kicked off as he drops to his knees in front of her. “Let me have this first, in the spirit of truth and reconciliation.” 

. . .


	12. Chapter 12

“There’s too much bloat,” Roman says, gesturing spastically with his fork as he talks into his phone. “Just fucking kill it, I’m tired of having this conversation.” 

The person he’s talking to hangs up after wasting another two minutes of his time, Roman going back to halfheartedly picking at his burrito and chips before he hands the server his card, checks in again with the useless headhunter even though he really needs to just fire the guy, find someone else to use since this one can’t even find him an assistant who doesn’t have some kind of frontal lobe damage or a weird fucking desire for work-life balance. 

Is there a headhunter for headhunters?

Maybe he’ll ask Gerri. 

_I’m getting a small taste of what it’s like to be you_ , he texts her. 

_Do tell_ , she responds a few minutes later, his phone buzzing in his hand as he walks down Santa Monica Boulevard. It’s warm in LA this week but the drier air really does make a difference and it’s nice enough now, the sun halfway down as he stretches his legs, traverses the distance to where his driver’s been told to idle. 

He hates coming out to the West Coast because it always brings back bad memories of fucking around in Waystar’s film division; people making fun of him behind his back when he thought himself a badass, doing whatever the hell he was doing with Grace. But this trip is only three days long, the first of which was spent in San Francisco, and it’s almost over now, just one more night in a hotel bed and a morning of early meetings and then he can fuck off home.

 _Being the only competent island in a sea of fucking incompetence_ , he texts Gerri, one thumb pecking out the words as he looks around. 

He thinks the Staples Center is another block over but he can never remember and that gap in knowledge weirdly bothers him despite that it doesn’t matter. No one walks in California, not even the poor people, and there’s something so fucking eerie about that. 

_Poor little rich boy_ , Gerri texts back and he snorts at that, the driver opening his door. 

He didn’t have a margarita with dinner, watched with a thin kind of amusement as people around him ordered some sort of flaming one served in a ridiculous glass, and he thinks some alcohol is called for once he’s back in his hotel suite, shoes off, belt unbuckled. 

_Are you home?_ he asks Gerri, and he’s rewarded a few minutes later with his phone ringing, skidding across the cushion of the sofa he’s flopped onto, a highball glass balanced precariously on his leg. 

“The emptiness of this part of the building can be a little creepy now,” she says when he picks up. She hardly ever says hello and he likes that about their occasional phone calls, the way she just jumps right into complaining about something or insulting someone the same way she does when she turns up in his apartment. 

“You want me to sell that other apartment to that family downstairs with the seventeen children? Have those little shits biking in the hallway all the time, probably leaving you literature about the Book of Mormon?” 

She laughs at that, long and throaty, and he wonders if she’s just in a particular mood or she’s already wound down, martini gone, pajamas already on. 

He wishes he were home to find out. 

“The Bradshaw's only have four children, I believe.”

“That’s two or three too many. Those kids are bound to be fucked up.”

“You’re the third of four,” she says here, and he can hear water running, maybe the kitchen sink from the sound of the clinking glass. 

“Case in point then,” he replies. “But no one counts Connor anyway, not even his crazy mother. He doesn’t even show up to things anymore.”

“ _You_ don’t even show up to family things anymore. Unless you’ve been sneaking away to your father’s house for dinner without telling me.” 

She clearly means it to be superficial snark but it bumps against something tender, a place inside him that feels bruised. There’s a good chance his father will die with them still being on the outs and he feels gutted every time he thinks about that. He’s never been in Kendall’s position before this, never pushed back hard against the old man before. He’d do it again if he had to, but that doesn’t change that fact that it’s painful, a paper cut that stings again and again as he moves around the world, ignoring it until something makes him remember.

“Nope,” he says, trying to sound light and unbothered. “Though I might have to go to England soon so my mother doesn’t disown me too.” 

“How soon?” she asks, her voice shifting here. A tad harsher, maybe. “Are you still coming to DC?”

The gala she mentioned last month is on his calendar, he’s cleared his schedule for three whole days next weekend, but she hasn’t mentioned it again since the night she first asked him to go and he wasn’t sure where that stood. Maybe she felt different about it in the light of day, no longer blissed out from her orgasm in an empty apartment he’d gobbled up before it even hit the market, just to be a little more alone with her.

“Of course I am,” he breezes. “I wouldn’t back out on you. Merry old England won’t be for a month or two anyway.” He isn’t sure where to pivot from here, he’d thought when she rang that the call might venture to the naughty side, but they haven’t done that on a call yet and he doesn’t particularly want to test the waters when he already feels fragile, his head full of thoughts about his family. “You want me to make all the travel arrangements? Spare your overworked assistant?” 

“You can book the flights if you want,” she says, clearly sounding like it’s a concession. A bit of control she doesn’t want to hand over. “I always stay at the Four Seasons and the reservation was made months ago.” 

Googling around tells him that there are two Four Seasons in DC, but it won’t be hard to figure out which of them she’s booked into, get them upgraded to the imperial suite or whatever the equivalent is. His last name is mostly a burden these days but it still comes with certain perks, doors that slide open for him that might otherwise remain closed for someone far more deserving of respect. 

“Noted,” he says, pulling up his calendar. “What time do you want to leave that Friday?” 

“Anytime after three should be fine,” she says and it sounds like she yawns here, the sound muffled. “My staff knows I’ll be unavailable.” 

“I should let you go,” he tells her, trying to be kind. “Stop squandering your time with my fucking rambling.” 

“You’re not squandering anything,” she says and sounds impatient. “Though I can think of other uses for our time on the phone. . .” 

“Something you need from me, Ms. Kellman?” He’s smirking now, leaning back into the couch, his whiskey glass sweating into his hand, the two ice cubes almost completely dissolved. 

“I don’t know, is there?” She’s clearly baiting him but there’s also some kind of uncertainty hiding in her voice, like she isn’t sure that what he wants or maybe isn’t sure what she wants herself. 

Either way it’s too much for him to push through, sitting in a hotel suite in a city he hates and feeling weirdly lonely, Gerri still right there, on the phone. 

“Well there’s plenty I want,” he says, not aiming for bravado or bluster, “like to take you dinner tomorrow. Sit across from you somewhere you can have a fucking superb martini and a meal that makes you forget about the idiots populating your day.” 

“How very considerate,” she replies, and he knows damn well now that she’s disappointed, not the turn in the conversation she’d wanted. 

“I can be very considerate,” he assures her. “Considerate and endlessly patient when I take you home after dinner. Put my mouth exactly where you’ve been wanting it since I left.” 

They had sex the night before he took off to California, but it was hurried and in her shower, Gerri wrapping her legs around him as he lifted her up, pinning her to the tile as he pumped in and out of her, and when he closed his eyes in bed last night, he’d replayed the noises she’d made. 

“Roman.” 

“But you’ll have to wait a whole nother day to have that,” he says matter of factly. “So tell me what time to pick you up tomorrow and sleep well.” 

He hears her make an annoyed sound when he goes to hang up and he chuckles at that, whiskey raised to his lips.

. . .

He wakes up a dozen text messages from his PR team, a story running in multiple outlets about Kendall having wrecked a car when he was twenty-two and high, his two injured friends spending a week in the hospital and then getting paid off to be quiet. 

It’s not running on any of Waystar’a outlets, but it’s obviously their father and Roman knows that at least two of those anonymous quotes came from the former Waystar PR head, the one before Karolina, because that guy would suck Logan Roy’s dick from his deathbed and only about three people knew the exact details of the crash outside of him and Ken.

 _Call me,_ he texts Ken on the number he has for him. Hopes his brother surprises him and actually responds, but he won’t hold his breath here. 

It isn’t the first story his father’s had leaked since Ken’s press conference but it’s by far the worst and it happens to be true, which means Ken could be somewhere with a needle in his arm by now. 

He’s been trying to stay out of it, lay low like everyone’s telling him, but it’s hard to watch his brother get raked over the coals for old shit that would have scared him straight if their dad wasn’t constantly fucking with Ken’s head over the years. And what does laying low even get him anyway? His morning meetings still go sideways, people never sure how to talk to him when his family’s exploding across the news, so it feels like a lose-lose to keep his mouth shut when his public silence still comes with people awkwardly fumbling across from him at conference tables, scattering in hallways as he walks down them. 

“You okay?” he asks when Ken calls. Answers the phone on the second ring. 

“I’ve been better,” Ken says in the hollowed out voice of his. “Called my sponsor though.”

It’s hard to keep track from a distance, but Roman’s pretty sure Kendall’s on a two-week streak of staying sober, no illusion his brother will keep it up. Everything is too hard and Naomi is still floating around, a gnat zipping around the flickering light of Ken’s constant flame out, but every sober day is a relief and Roman lets himself burrow down in the temporary comfort of that now.

“This is bullshit, Pop and his usual bullshit, alright? Don’t read any of that shit, it doesn’t matter.”

“None if it’s wrong,” Ken says, sounding fucking miserable. “I did that. Broke two of Curtis’s ribs and messed up Merritt’s shoulder so bad he had to quit lacrosse.”

“Hold on,” Roman says to him, putting down the privacy screen and motioning for his driver to pull over, no matter that they’re on the freeway. He hops out and starts to pace the concrete shoulder, not paying any mind to the trash and broken glass. “Look, Merritt messed up his own goddamn shoulder when he sold you all that coke, watched you huff it up like a fucking Hungry Hungry Hippo and then still climbed into a fucking Lamborghini with you. He was a piece of shit then and he’s a piece of shit now.”

“My kids are going to hear that story,” Ken says. “I can’t even tell them it’s a lie because it was me, it’s always all me.” 

“Call your shrink,” Roman orders. “Come to my place and we’ll figure it out. Alright?” A car honks nearby, the sound of squealing brakes and gridlock drowning out whatever Ken says here. “And lacrosse is a bullshit sport anyway. Preppy pussies too afraid to play rugby.”

 _Did you know that was coming?_ he angrily texts Shiv when he’s back in the car, his driver trying to merge into traffic that’s somehow deteriorated in the span of five minutes. Fucking LA. 

_Fuck you_ , Shiv texts back. _Of course not._

He thinks he believes her but it’s harder to sniff out her bullshit over text alone. 

The flight home is about five hours and he tries to keep busy, wrestle with work and touch base with his business manager and a few other people. Apparently that bartender guy, Ben, finally got a hold of his people and Roman spins his phone on the table in front of him as he skims the email on his laptop. Spins it and spins it before he stops, typing out a message firing his headhunter and then sends a reply to the business manager. Tells him to have Ben vetted and given the usual NDA colonoscopy because he’s about to become the new assistant. 

They’re circling New York when he sends the message to his PR team indicating he’ll be breaking his silence on the Kendall shit and directing them to send him options within the hour. He doesn’t know what time he’s picking up Gerri for dinner but there’s no way it’ll be before seven or eight and he doesn’t want to be sifting through emails from his team while they’re out. 

_7:15_ , she tells him when he asks for a time. _Pick me up at the office._ He figured as much but he’s relieved for the clarification, always happy to be bossed around by her. 

Albert’s with the pet sitter until ten, but he can move that around as need be, and he pauses here, a moment of appreciation for the fact that he can keep everything spinning without a gaggle of Waystar employees trying to shepherd him from thing to thing, their efforts about as futile as trying to herd a dozen cats. He wonders how many people he drove to drink back then, feels amused and embarrassed in equal measure.

They pull up to Gerri’s office a few minutes early but she’s already coming out, some dude beside her, clearly talking her ear off as she stands with an impassive face, earrings moving from side to side as she looks around, spots his car. She says goodbye to whoever it is, clearly cuts him off mid-sentence, and Roman smiles at that because he loves when she’s a bitch.

He hops out here, swinging open the door for her before the driver can come around to do it, and the look she gives him says doesn’t appreciate the performance but he doesn’t care. He’s too happy to see her.

“Why do men feel the need to produce so many fucking words?” she asks, the moment her door is closed. “Is there a verbal quota that goes along with your gender or something?”

“You once complained about my own verbal baseline,” he reminds her. “So I don’t think I should float any theories here.” He means it to be funny, a dark little joke, but her face changes after that, the annoyance smoothing out into something less fun. 

“I’m still sorry about that,” she says. 

“I’m not,” he says, sliding over in the seat. “It was fucking funny and you weren’t wrong.” 

He meant to make her wait, wind her up a little, but she has her hair pinned up today and she smells so good and he can’t, there’s no way. 

She makes a little surprised sound when he kisses her, hands already groping her through her blouse. He wants her in his lap, wants to be able to hold onto her hips while he kisses her, but he’s already hovering on top of her and he doesn’t want to have to pivot back, renegotiate positions, so leans into what’s already available, knees straddling her lap, most of his weight kept off her. 

“We can’t do this in the car,” she says, but she isn’t pushing him off, one hand on his ass and the other palming him through his pants. 

“No,” he shakes his head. Stopping her when he feels her unzipping him a minute later, his body swaying as they maneuver through traffic. “Don’t. I’ll come all over you.” She makes a desperate little noise at that, a sound completely antithetical to the woman who just iced that asshole out on the street. “Just let me have this before dinner.” 

“Oh,” she says when he grounds down on her lap, his mouth all over her. He’s hard now, pressing against her where her legs have already parted, her hips bucking up to meet him. 

His mouth’s been on her chest and neck, his teeth grazing against the thin gold chain she’s wearing today, and he moves back to her mouth now. Immediately feels her teeth clamping down on his lower lip. 

They’re a wreck by the time the car pulls up to the restaurant, her blouse half unbuttoned and damp in two places from his tongue, his own shirt wrinkled, his hair probably sticking up.

“We can just go home,” she says, sounding a little desperate. 

“Nu-uh,” he pants. Tries to think of things to calm his dick down. Horrible things. Sad things. That one time he walked in on his mother in the shower with the horse trainer. “You like the food at this place and we’re already here.”

She glares at him now, probably suspicious of a power play, and it is, kind of, but he really does want to take her dinner. Maybe talk her into doing a sake bomb or something. 

“Okay,” she says. Makes it sound like a threat.

The host leads them to a booth in the corner, soft red light from the lanterns above reflecting against two filled water glasses, and because the booths are high here and he’s horny, apparently in a shit stirring mood, he slides in on the same side as Gerri. 

“Thank you,” she says primly as she accepts the sake menu. Squints down her glasses at it until the host is gone. “If you think I’m letting you put your filthy hands on me under this table, you’re sorely mistaken.”

“Had not occurred to me,” he lies. “But I’ll move across to the other side if you’d prefer.”

“No,” she says, touching his arm here as she turns the menu around. “The nice thing about the age gap is that no one pays much attention to us. Women of my age tend to be invisible anyway. If anyone thinks anything at all it’s probably that you’re a good samaritan, taking a doddering woman out to dinner.”

“You aren’t doddering,” he argues instinctively. “And anyway who the fuck cares what randos think.” She doesn’t push back, just lets his agitation evaporate as they mull over menus. “How ‘bout you order us a pile of food, whatever sounds good to you.”

“Fine but order me something to drink. The print on that menu is too small for me to read in this light.”

She orders their food and he orders their drinks, a martini for her and some sake for him. He gets a few kinds because he needs to branch out, only cares for one good brand and, weirdly enough, the shitty house sake at that one place he goes to with Shiv.

“Are you planning to get drunk?” Gerri asks, sounding more amused than anything. 

“No, just in an experimental mood,” he says, sitting back. “I need to up my sake game.”

Their drinks arrive and she sips her martini before standing up, looking around for the restroom. “Don’t get too far ahead of me,” she says as he plays with his sake carafes. She glides off after that, her vector apparently established.

“Hey,” Roman calls their server. Has to stand up because the booth is so fucking tall, waving his napkin now to catch her eye. “In about twenty minutes can you bring us to two sake bombs?”

“I’m sorry, two what?” she says politely, her smile clearly fake, but he doesn’t chafe at that. He knows he’s being a buffoon.

He hurriedly explains what they are, thanking her in advance. Sits back down a minute before Gerri reappears, sliding in beside him, her thigh now pressed against his. 

“I refrained from getting shitfaced. Out of deference to you.”

“How kind,” she drawls. Picks up one of his sakes and sniffs at it. “I didn’t know you cared for sake.”

“I don’t like a lot of them,” he admits. “That’s the whole experiment. I’m trying to figure what it is I do like so I can order better, not waste my fucking time.”

“Surprisingly prudent,” she says. “Coming from someone so feckless.” Her foot touches against his here, her mouth twitching with a smile she doesn’t allow to bloom, and he beams at her now. Desperately wants to lean forward and press his lips to hers, her mouth probably a little briny from her drink.

She makes him go methodically through his sake selections, asking him questions about the ones he immediately pushes away after a single sip. He would have just careened through randomly, pissing and moaning about the ones he doesn’t enjoy, but she keeps him moving forward. Asks their server about the ones he likes when she turns up with their first course, Roman immediately filling his mouth with food as Gerri talks, pecking out a note of some kind on her phone. 

They’re halfway through the meal when the sake bombs arrive, Gerri’s eyebrows high on her forehead.

“Thank you so much,” Roman says and the server skedaddles away, a nervous glance thrown at Gerri. 

“No,” she says. “Absolutely not.”

“You haven’t even tried it!”

“I don’t care for beer and I’m too old for shots. And so are you, for that matter.”

“Just one,” he pleads. Slides his hand up her leg a little before he pulls it away. “I won’t make you finish it if you hate it.” 

“You’re a child,” she sighs. “I’m cavorting with a manchild.”

“I prefer manbaby,” he volleys back. “Since I kept the oral fixation and all.” 

“Alright,” she relents. Probably knows he'll just be unbearable with his pestering. “But if this makes me feel sick you better not abandon me in my hour of need.”

“Never,” he promises, already rigging the shot glasses up on the chopsticks and beer. 

“God that’s awful,” she says, her face contorted by disgust while he’s still chugging. But she goes back to it anyway, finishing the whole thing as he watches her, wiping his mouth with his napkin. 

“I told you that you didn’t have to finish it,” he says, chuckling as she slams the beer glass down.

“I like finishing things,” she says. “I’m an expert at finishing things.” 

It’s hard to bypass the lascivious remark that statement demands in response, but they’re in public and she’s clearly staring at his mouth now, and all they have to do is make through dinner and they can fuck in the car if they really want.

The food is excellent, better than when they’re both plowing through it in his dining room after it’s been sweating in to-go containers, and he steers the conversation that way. Fills her plate with more of the seaweed salad that she likes and he hates. 

“Two more of those,” Gerri says to their server, gesturing to the empty shot glasses the woman carefully collects. 

“Noooo,” Roman says, chuckling with surprise. “No, no. Please ignore her, she doesn’t get to leave the nursing home much.”

He gets hit pretty hard in the stomach for that, the server’s back already turned. They’re no doubt her worst table and he feels a little bad at that, but it’s hard to feel guilty when Gerri’s giggling next to him, her face flushed bright red from the booze.

“One of us clearly can’t handle their sake,” he says, his hand back on her thigh now. “Tactical information I’m filing away for when I fucking need it.”

“I can handle anything,” she says, her hand covering his, shifting his fingers down and then back up, under the hem of her skirt. 

He has little fantasies about her doing exactly this, but the reality is more dangerous. Which makes it all way hotter, obviously, and it physically pains him to pull his hand away, disengage his mouth when she leans in to kiss him here.

“Easy there,” he says, his cheek against hers because he’s only human, he can’t not touch her.

“No one can see us,” she purrs, breath warm on his face.

Their server returns with two more sake bombs and Roman promptly hands her his card. “Thanks,” he says, Gerri already sliding the shots closer and setting up the chopsticks.

“Am I doing this right?” 

“Jesus Christ, you’re serious.” 

“I didn’t win last time. I want a rematch.” 

“How ‘bout I forfeit now and we say you won.”

“I’m not drunk,” she argues back. “It takes a lot more than one martini and a single shot to get me even close.”

She’s not not drunk though, the sake clearly hitting her hard the way it does Shiv, but it’s silly to cause an argument here when she so rarely cuts loose like this in public. No harm in her getting a little drunk if they don’t do anything she’ll regret later. 

He lets her win so she doesn’t demand another rematch. Makes a big show of chugging as he watches her get hers down, finishing before him. 

She’s all over him in the car, but it’s weird for him because he’s way more sober than she is and that doesn’t feel right, no matter that they were halfway to fucking in the car on the way to dinner. He repeatedly shifts her hand away from his pants but doesn’t complain when she works her way onto his lap, her kisses sloppier, more open mouthed, the kind she gives him after sex. 

The car jolts in traffic and he catches her before she can fall back, feels her teeter on his lap.

“I guess that's what we get when he forego our seatbelts,” he says, trying to make a joke of it, cool things off, but she seems undeterred. Goes right back to tongue fucking him in a way that makes him groan into her mouth, his hands groping at her ass until he stops himself. Gently slides her off him. 

“I’m not some drunken coed,” she pouts. Apparently knows what he’s thinking by the way she glares at him as the car slows, the driver opening her door. 

“I didn’t say you were,” he says sweetly as he follows her into the building and then the elevator. 

It lurches a little between floors and he sees Gerri grip the handrail suddenly. 

“Alright,” she says, her voice oddly steady now. “I am willing to concede that my ordering that last round might have been a mistake.”

“No shit,” he says, already rubbing her back. It doesn’t look like she’s about to projectile vomit, he doubts she’s that type of a drunk anyway, but she probably has the spins, should lie down for an hour or so until she sobers up.

He shuffles her into his apartment and then down the hall, into his bedroom. Peels her out of her clothes.

“Rome, I don’t think I can- I mean I want to but -”

“None of that,” he interrupts her. Presses her into bed and pulls the sheet over her. “Do you want a shirt to borrow or are you okay like that?”

“I’m fine like this,” she says, and he goes back to the living room after that. Riffles through his suitcase for some headache medicine and comes back to the bed with two pills and a glass of water. “I don’t think I need that. Really, I already feel better now that I’m lying down.”

“You might regret that decision later,” he says. Leaves the water and pills on the nightstand beside her and then crawls onto the bed, lying beside her but over the covers.

“Something about you makes me want to be reckless,” she says, rolling over onto her side, watching him here. “Why is that?”

“I don’t know if that’s a bad thing. Assuming you trust me not to steer you off a fucking cliff.”

“I do,” she says. “Not something I’m accustomed to, I assure you, but I honestly do.”

“I’m releasing a statement about the Ken stuff tomorrow.”

“Coming out against your father?”

“Not specifically no, but that’s how my dad will see it.” Her hair is still pinned up and that doesn’t look comfortable, so he takes the pins out one by one as he talks. Piles them up on his belly as he hunts them out with his fingers. “I’m probably going to be the subject of a little more scrutiny after that, so I’ll wait to release the statement until after you leave for work.”

“Thank you,” she says as she reaches behind her ear, pulling out a bobby-pin he apparently missed. She plunks it down on his stomach with the rest. 

“Al’s getting dropped off in a bit, but I’d like it if you stayed.”

“Good because I’m awfully comfortable here. You make a surprisingly efficient nurse.” 

“I’m full service too,” he says. Waggles his eyebrows before he kisses her, long and slow, both of them tasting like spice and beer.

The buzzer sounds when things are just getting good, her fingers in his hair as he kisses down her neck, but he gets up and lumbers out to the door, relieves the exhausted looking sitter of his spastic dog. 

Al basically ignores him to make a beeline for the bedroom, Gerri almost immediately pleading with the dog to get down, voice turning curt and angry after he probably ignores her. 

“Did you get a scolding?” he asks Al when he re-enters the bedroom, Albert sitting on the floor and making sad eyes at Gerri.

“He slobbered all over me.”

“He should know that’s my job,” he says, sliding in beside her. 

“Not now,” Gerri pushes him away, a hand to his chest. “He’s watching us.”

“He’s seen worse on TV.” He bends down, biting her ear in a way that makes her breath hitch. “We watch a lot of HBO in this household.”

“Send him out at least.”

“Fine,” he relents. Sets Albert up in the living room with one of new toys he keeps squirreled away in a closet. “Now, where were we?”

“I believe you were about to substantiate your claim about being full service.” 

He stripped down to his boxers before he got into bed, the satin of her panties sliding against them when he pulls her on top of him, a hand in her hair while they kiss. 

“I was very close to fucking you in the car,” he admits. Coaxes her mouth open, encouraging a bit of the sloppiness she treated him to earlier. 

“Thank you for not,” she says, a hand sneaking into his shorts, making him groan. “My hip would have complained about that later, like it did after that little shower performance.”

“That hurt you?” He stops dead, clenching up.

“No, I hurt myself by not acting my fucking age. I assure you, I had zero complaints at the time.”

They're both completely naked and he’s angling to slide into her when she suddenly moves down, propping herself over his stomach. 

“Where are you going?” he complains. Watches her toss her hair over her shoulder.

“I’m doing the thing I always try to do before you somehow distract me,” she huffs, her hand around his dick.

“I don’t distract you,” he says. Can think of four times in the last three weeks alone that things headed this way before he diverted them, occupying her elsewhere with his tongue and teeth. “Gerri, no, I won’t last.”

“That’s fine,” she says before she ducks her head, taking him into her mouth, and he groans so loud it’s fucking embarrassing. 

She hums at that, the vibration hitting his dick in a way that’s going to make him come in about five seconds flat, but it’s too good to stop her. 

“What?” he complains when she pulls her mouth away. “Why?” 

“Well you didn’t want to come too quickly,” she says sweetly. Looks up at him with an evil glint he can feel in his balls. “So. What are you thinking of doing with that empty apartment? You can’t use it as an office you know, the building will throw a fit about zoning.”

“Fuck you,” he says, laughing despite himself. 

Fucking cruel is what she is. 

“You do so often and with great finesse,” she coos, a soothing voice she probably uses on people in court, right before she stabs them in the ribs. “Let’s try something a little different this time.”

He makes a pathetic sound here, her nail idly tracing his thigh, and when she goes back to it a minute later his orgasm has receded some, no longer bearing down on him like a train. 

“Jesus, Gerri,” he gasps. But then she does something with her tongue and he can’t talk anymore, can’t help but thrust into her mouth. 

The pleasant sound of surprise she makes at that is almost enough to make him come all by itself. 

“You can knock out your living room wall,” she says. Makes the words sound idle even as she stares at him with shiny lips he’s now bucking to reach, her arm restraining him. “Connect the two units to make one gaudy monument to new money and bad taste.”

“Are you trying to kill me?” 

“Not unless I’ve made it into your will already.”

“You can whatever you want from me,” he says, not caring that he’s begging. Looks down at her here, her blue eyes watching him in amusement and her hair completely fucked. “You know that, right? You can have whatever you want.”

“Careful,” she tsks. “I might be inclined to call that a verbal contract, if ever you leave me angry and jilted.” 

She doesn’t pull away when he finally comes, ignores his hands when they try to dislodge her mouth, a frantic motion he was barely even capable of before he’s abruptly too far gone to care. 

He lies there panting for a while, his fingers still threaded through her hair, and when he feels like he can maybe form words again he looks down, her chin resting on his stomach now, her expression decidedly smug. 

“So you like finishing things huh,” he says, remembering what she said earlier, in the restaurant. 

“I really do,” she says, her fingers drumming out a happy little rhythm on his thigh.

. . .

Shiv calls him when his statement goes live the next day, splashed across multiple outlets. He hated everything his PR team gave him because nothing sounding like him, all of it empty, insincere bullshit, and he had them clean up something he drafted himself, asked Gerri to read the final version, her eyes going glassy for a second as she read the last few lines before she nodded, told him to run it. 

“Dad is losing it,” Shiv announces. “Congratulations.”

“Only in our family could a statement about the pain of watching a loved one battle through addiction be seen as an act of fucking betrayal.” 

“You could have told me,” she says, and he wishes that were true. Wishes they had more trust between them than they do.

“This way you were able to truthfully tell him that you had no idea it was coming,” he hedges. 

“Is that what you want? You and Ken battling it out alone against the Goliath?”

“No,” he sighs. “What I want is our niece and nephew to not get asked about the shit their father did at twenty-two by their fucking classmates.” He can hear the sound of a car door shutting on the side of the line, probably Shiv starting her workday. “Look, he’s going to be gone one day and it’ll only be us. Try to remember that, okay?”

He hates that it sounds like a prayer whenever he says it now, the dangling hope that someday soon Logan Roy will die. It isn’t. It fucking isn’t, and he’s had enough therapy to know that nothing on that front will ever give him peace, not even a bitter tasting kind of relief. 

“I know,” Shiv sighs. “I do.”

It isn’t even afternoon before TMZ’s running a story about him getting jerked off by a trainer three years ago. It isn’t surprising or even upsetting, he knows there’s worse to come and this is just a warning shot across his bow. A little rim job before before Baird or someone else lubes up, leaks shit about Japan, really tries to fuck him. But he’s talked to his lawyers and they’re prepared, he isn’t as easily startled away from things as he used to be.

“You ever been someone’s assistant?” he asks Ben in the car later, the two of them heading to a meeting with his PR team. 

“No,” Ben shakes his head. 

“There aren’t a lot of rules with me,” Roman says. Pulls out his phone and sends a text to Gerri. “Just stay on top of shit and keep my secrets. Don’t let me miss a call from my brother or Gerri.”

Ben nods, looking scared shitless, but there are worse things to be than afraid. God knows Roman never knew to be scared at the appropriate times, always too stupid and cocksure as he gambled about the world like a horse on fucking speed. 

The day seems to evaporate after he gets Ben set up in the empty apartment that now has two desks and a small couch, Ben already texting away on his work phone and checking emails on his laptop. 

“How do you feel about some dude named Merritt?” he asks Roman. 

“He’s a douche, fuck him.” Ben only nods at that, thumbs still rapid firing off texts.

Ken calls later, Ben tossing his phone to him on the first ring, and Roman worries for all ten of the seconds it takes to get his phone to his ear. 

“Hey,” he answers.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Ken says. “You don’t need to be in this.”

“Fuck you,” Roman says to that. “But you’re welcome and I love you too, you asshole.”

“I’m downstairs,” Ken says. “You said to come over, so I’m here.”

“I gotta do some shit,” Roman announces when he hangs up. “If I’m not back in an hour, shut it down and go home.”

Ben’s only response is a thumbs up, ignoring him after that, and so far Roman would take him over any three of his previous assistants combined. 

“I’m hungry,” Ken says, like a minute after he’s in the apartment. “Are you hungry?”

He isn’t actually, probably because he killed three bags of candy an hour ago, pacing and doing shit on his phone while he and Ben talked through a list of tasks. 

“Order whatever you want,” he says. “I gotta walk Al. You staying or coming with?”

“Staying,” Ken says. Reaches down to pet Albert, the dog burying his face in Ken’s leg while he gets his back scratched. 

Ken’s food comes right as Roman’s coming back into the building, has to trundle in with the boxes in one hand and the leash in his other, Al curiously nosing the bag.

“So I’m looking at rings for Naomi,” Ken says, which is just the most Kendall-esque thing he could say right now. “What do you think of this one?”

“You’re life’s in the shitter and the ink is barely dry on your last divorce, but you’re going to propose to Naomi?” He wishes he lived in a world where shit like this surprises him, but he does not. 

“Did your new assistant start today?” Gerri asks when she comes through the door. She only hesitates a beat before she says, “Hello, Kendall,” then pivots back to Roman. “I had to listen to Misses Greer fretting over a brown man heading to our floor, clearly about to rob us both blind.”

“Swell,” Roman says. “Tell her us Roy’s are always happy to meet an avid ATN watcher.” She smiles at that. “Hey, Ken’s gonna ask Naomi to marry him.” Ken throws up a hand in frustration here, clearly annoyed by the immediate betrayal. “No, really. Come look at this ugly ass ring he wants to buy her.”

“My youngest daughter’s getting married in three months,” Gerri says as she pours herself a glass of wine in the kitchen, and this is news to Roman. “Make it a double ceremony and I’ll split the cost with you, save my money for when I have to help pay for Claire’s divorce attorney.”

“So you’re a romantic,” Ken says. “Make sure to take this one as your date, he's great at weddings. Made my ex-mother-in-law cry by way of his speech at mine and then, oh yeah, blew up a rocket during Shiv’s.”

Roman flips him off here, Gerri dodging the statement entirely. 

“Alright,” she says, “let’s see this ring.” Ken pulls out his phone, loser that he is, immediately jumping at the slightest sign of interest in his horrible idea. “Well, does Naomi have good taste?” 

“She’s with Ken,” Roman drawls, standing to dish her some food now. “What do you think?”

“Well then it’s perfect,” Gerri says, sitting down between Ken and the chair Roman’s vacated. “Just the right ring for a woman with no taste.”

Ken just looks stunned and Roman crows with laughter. He’d kiss her right on the mouth right here if he didn’t think she’d freak out about him doing that in front of Ken. 

“You know, I didn’t understand the connection here,” Ken begins, settling his napkin in his lap with one hand and gesturing between the two of them with the other. “But I get it now. You’re as fucked up and horrible as he is.”

“Debatable,” Gerri allows, sounding cheerful. Clearly knows there’s no real ire behind Ken’s words. “These steamed buns look different. Did you order from another place?”

“Ken’s choice,” Roman shrugs. “If they’re subpar it’s on him.” 

Roman doesn’t really eat anything, just keeps the conversation going and tries to make Gerri laugh, her knee pressed against his leg while she sips her wine and picks at her food, obviously watching the two of them. 

“So did you help Rome right up that statement?” Ken asks. “It sounded a little too mature to be him, one too many multisyllabic words, so I assume he had some adult supervision.”

“No,” Gerri replies before Roman can float a joke here, make a self-deprecating remark. “And he ignored his own PR team’s advice to release that, so forgive me if I don’t find that barb at his expense funny.”

“Gerri,” Roman stops her, a hand on her leg now. “It’s just a dumb joke.”

“She’s right,” Ken says after an awkward beat. “It was a crappy thing to say. I’m sorry.”

“I’m the king of inappropriate, shitty comments,” Roman shrugs. “It’s fine.”

No one looks happy after that, Gerri pulling off her glasses and sighing here.

“Kendall, you look like shit. Are you even sleeping?” She’s softer here, pitying or maternal or something. Roman isn’t sure because this isn’t a tone she’s ever used on him and he’s fucking glad for that.

“Some,” Ken says and then pauses, swallows. “It’s hard because of the kids.”

“I’m sorry,” she says. 

“Thanks,” Ken replies. “Sorry if this shit spills over onto you guys.”

He and Gerri look at rings after that, Gerri pointing Ken to better options while Albert circles around the table, settling by Gerri’s feet as Roman clears the dirty plates.

“You want some help?” Ken asks him, Gerri waving Ken off. 

“He’s fine,” she says. “What about that one? It’s tasteful but still expensive enough. When she pawns it after the divorce, she can be consoled by the spite of that.”

Roman smirks at that, kissing her cheek when he tops off her wine. He starts to move away and she pulls him back, kisses him quickly on the mouth before she goes back to talking to his dumbass brother, Kendall not even batting an eye as he chatters away, pointing at shit on his phone as he scrolls and scrolls.

. . .


	13. Chapter 13

Roman wakes up to his phone ringing incessantly. It’s early in the morning, still dark outside, and it’s tempting to push the end call button when he sees Ben’s name across his screen. 

No phone call at 4:32 am will ever bring good news and he can still dodge whatever it is in favor of a few more precious hours of unconsciousness, not deal with whatever story his father leaked about Japan and the satellite launch until later. But it might be about something else, might be something with Kendall, and Roman groans here, sliding his finger across his phone to answer the call. 

“I’ve been texting you for an hour,” Ben says, talking a mile a minute. “Did you see it? Did you see the thing?” 

“What thing?” Roman mumbles. Squints as he puts his phone on speaker and then haphazardly pushes at things on his screen until he manages to pull up his messages. 

“The stuff about Gerri.” 

Roman sits up. Turns the light on. Hangs up the call. 

He’s still half asleep, but it looks like the first article Ben sent him is one of Waystar’s more prestigious outlets and is nominally a cursory introduction to Gerri Kellman, an alleged Senatorial hopeful for the state of New York. An outsider with good odds, if the bullshit pundits quoted at the beginning were to be believed, and what follows is roughly a thousand words of praise; quotes from ex-staff about Gerri’s work and her tenacity, pop feminist clit-flicking-shit about the need for more women in the running. 

Roman knows that none of its real, it’s just a fucking fluffer, a strategy to get Gerri’s name trending online before they drop something else. When he clicks the link in another message it’s some bullshit gossip blog with a picture of him and Gerri standing on the street, his hand on her lower back, probably waiting for one of their car services. Nothing salacious about the picture itself, could just be two friends standing on the street, but the tagline underneath reads, _The Candidate Who MILF’ed Me_ and yeah, that’s pretty not fucking great. 

The poorly edited text that follows is mostly a take down of him, calling him a disaster human (true), coddled and over privileged (both true), and a serial playboy who goes through women like ties. The last part is laughable for any number of reasons, the least of which being that he doesn’t actually wear that many ties. But he knows it isn’t about him. The point is to make Gerri look the latest woman in a long line of idiots before her, and the idea that his father put this in motion makes him physically sick to his stomach.

Gerri won’t be awake for another hour yet, and he knows that every minute she doesn’t know about this is a tactical loss. So he takes a deep breath and puts his feet on the floor, talks himself out of the fucking dread he’s feeling at the prospect of breaking the bad news to her. 

She opens the door on the second knock, already dressed and on the phone, all of the lights of her apartment on and two laptops open in her living room. 

“I don’t like that strategy,” she says, waving him in as she talks into her phone. “That makes me look like some pathetic middle-aged woman who seduced a younger man.” There’s coffee made and he feels like caffeine might be the only thing that keeps him from hurling himself off a balcony in the next hour, so he grabs a cup and chugs a little down, lets it scald his tongue and throat. “I want more options in half an hour,” he hears Gerri say. “I need to take care of something now, I’ll call you back.” 

“Hi,” he says weakly. Doesn’t really know what else to say here because clearly she’s been informed already and she isn’t really looking at him, shooting him only cursory glances as she floats between checking multiple screens. 

“Hi,” she says. Sounds pretty fucking terse. 

“Umm. . . How are you?” 

“I’m about to lose a month of my income to PR and legal fees, and in about four hours my daughters will wake up in California, their morning internet browsing inevitably culminating in a phone chat about my sex life. So not particularly fabulous.” 

“I’m sorry,” he says. Isn’t sure what else to do here because she looks closed off and angry and he doesn’t know if it’s at his father, or the world, or him specifically. He feels like a pretty worthy target for her anger, no matter that he hasn’t really done anything. 

“Thanks,” she says dryly. “I’ll ask my lawyer if I can pay him in apologies, though I doubt Roy apologies are bankable enough.” 

“Yeah,” he sighs, willing to take that much on the chin because clearly his family sucks. “So how do I help here? Shouldn’t we coordinate PR strategies?”

“No.” She sits down on the couch, clicking through something on her laptop. “That won’t be necessary but thank you.” She clicks through a few more things, glasses sliding down her nose before she says, “The picture of us was from two months ago. Waystar’s probably had someone following us around since at least then, so that was just the tip of the photographic iceberg.” She shakes her head. “There was probably someone in that Japanese restaurant the other day, photographing me drunk, acting like some kind of horny teenager and I -” She doesn’t finish the thought, closing her eyes and turning her head instead. 

“Let me help,” he begs, coming to sit beside her. “Tell me what you need and I’ll have my team do it.” 

“Your team’s job is to make Roman Roy look good, not Gerri Kellman, and I’m sorry but I think those two things are at cross purposes now.” 

“Um, that little gossip puppet called me a self-entitled prick and a womanizer,” he notes, prickling up now. “We’re fighting the same enemy and you know I’ll have your back. My whole family even knows that.” 

“You can’t just wave your money around and fix this,” Gerri tells him, her voice rising here. “That article on my would-be candidacy just washed the work of about a dozen people down the drain.”

“The Senate thing?” he demands and she doesn’t say anything. “You mean that’s real? That’s a real fucking thing?” 

“It could have been real,” she grounds out. “But your family and Waystar just killed it, thank you, so now no, it is no longer a real thing.” 

He stands up off the couch, pacing now. “You’re planning to run for a fucking Senate seat and you never brought it up? Not at dinner or at a brunch or after sex? Not even some matter of fact announcement like, ‘hey, guess what, I’m not wearing panties and maybe I’m running for the United States Senate’?” 

“I told you I needed discretion,” she reminds him as he paces in front of her. “We talked about it more times than I can even count.” 

“Yeah,” he argues. “But you never said why. And it wasn’t me who kept kissing you on streets and groping you in restaurants and inviting you to annual galas in DC where there’s bound to be lots of fucking press!” 

“Well don’t worry about that last part because your invitation is rescinded. Now please leave, so I can go back to piecing together the professional life that has been blown apart by your presence in my personal one.” 

He feels like he’s been hit by a cab, rocks back on his heels, the world off kilter. 

They’ve had plenty of unpleasant words by now but this is different, this is something worse than her drawing fickle fucking boundaries and then being upset that he couldn’t stay on the right side of them. She won’t even look at him here and honestly, he thinks half of what she just said was unbelievably shitty. Like, Logan Roy level shitty.

“I’m having my PR team contact yours,” he tells her. He doesn’t think his voice shakes but he isn’t sure, isn’t sure about a lot of things at the moment. “Up to you whether you put them to work fixing this.” 

He hears her call his name as he leaves but he feels so gutted and angry, he ignores her. Staggers back across the hall and pours himself some more coffee. Goes about the rest of his morning like some kind of zombie, standing in the shower so long that the water runs cold. 

He thinks he hears the sound of the door while he’s in there, afraid to come out and find Gerri sitting on his bed, more angry words at the ready. But the only one ambling about is Albert, clearly waiting for his breakfast now, and Roman sends some texts to Ben and his PR team while he feeds him. Skips making himself anything because he’s pretty sure he’d throw it up. 

_You alright?_ Ken texts him just before six, but Roman doesn’t answer. Throws his phone in his work bag and heads down to the apartment he’s using as an office. Tries to bury himself in a pile of work until Ben arrives at seven.

His PR team checks in around nine, asking for clarification on any conflicts with Gerri’s team, and Roman just shrugs at the phone here like they can fucking see him. He doesn’t know why any of this matters now but he has Ben tell them to take all of their marching orders from Gerri’s people, follow their lead no matter what. Tells them he doesn’t need any of their usual updates from here on out. 

“You haven’t eaten anything,” Ben says, when it’s six o’clock and they’re still working, Roman having ingested only coffee for the thirteen hours he’s been up. 

“I’m good,” Roman says, bouncing a rubber ball against the wall repeatedly as Ben watches him. “But order yourself whatever. Go nuts, it’s on me.” 

It’s after seven when the pictures of him and Gerri at that Japanese restaurant go live on Vaulter, and he allows himself a dark smirk that his dad made it such an obvious fuck you by running it there. But the picture could be worse, the high booth seats probably saved them, and all it is an obviously tipsy Gerri leaving the restaurant with her body pressed against him, his arm around her, her hand clearly on his ass. 

He highly doubts Gerri saw that and thought ‘it could be worse’ and he has zero interest in checking in with her here. Just goes right back to working as Ben wolfs down some food from Per Se, still typing out texts and emails about a meeting they’re setting up in Toronto, Albert pacing circles around them because he probably has to go out. 

“You want me to take him down?’ Ben offers, and really Roman doesn’t. He likes walking his dog and feeling like a normal human for at least thirty minutes out of every day, it keeps him sane.

But he also doesn’t want to run into Gerri. 

“That’d be great,” Roman says and throws him his house keys. “Leash is in the hall, by the coat rack.” Ben nods, Albert already wagging his tail. “Do me a favor and grab me some toiletries and a change of clothes, too.” 

He thinks he’ll just sleep here tonight, on the couch, but he’s not going to tell Ben that. 

“Gerri’s looking for you,” Ben says, and yeah, Roman figured that by the nine text messages he has from her but hasn’t read. 

“Thanks,” Roman says. Pointedly ignores Ben’s expression, the dude looking like he got some kind of scolding from the principle while he was down the hall. 

The couch isn’t particularly comfortable and he doesn’t sleep much, Albert climbing up by his feet at some point, making a circle before he settles in, heavy against one of his ankles, and Roman tries to focus in on the warm weight there. Not think about his therapy appointment in the morning or how angry Gerri looked when he saw her, the way she just dismissed him out of hand like he wasn’t even worth talking to or strategizing with. 

When he sleeps, he dreams of his father. 

. . . 

He’s in a meeting in Midtown when Shiv texts him. Says something about a Roy-Kellman charm offensive with a shitty little joke and a link attached. 

It’s another hour before he remembers it, clicking on the link. Sees another gossip column about him and Gerri, this one with pictures of them walking Albert in the park, Gerri in her casual Sunday clothes and Roman beaming, looking at her like she’s the center of the fucking universe. 

The tag line is _Youngest Roy Son in Love_ and he actually spits his sparkling water all over the car when he scans it, Ben yelping and reaching for anything resembling a napkin as Roman sits there, doing a fucking spit take like something out of a shitty Seth Rogen movie. 

“Find out who approved that,” he tells Ben because there’s no way those lovey dovey photos weren’t someone’s idea of damage control, and whoever it is, he wants them fired. 

His PR team says the idea came from Gerri’s team and Gerri’s team claims that’s a lie, that it was his team’s, but regardless of who came up with it, they all apparently fucking ran with it because there are six similar stories in the pipeline, all of them clearly cute-ifing the thing Vaulter framed as raunchy and sordid. 

“We tried to get your approval,” someone at his PR teams whines, “but your assistant kept telling us you didn’t want updates and this was what Gerri Kellman’s team pushed for.” 

So now they’re blaming Ben? 

Fuck them. 

“Backtrack,” he tells them, sounding hysterical here. “Fucking backtrack out of this and do not - _do not_ lead with the word ‘love’ again, I swear to fucking God I’ll fire you all.” 

That doesn’t really fix anything and he knows that, but he does feel better after having shouted. 

“Where are we on Toronto?” he asks Ben, as they march up the fourth flight of stairs. It’s two o’clock in the afternoon and there’s no way Gerri’s home, but therapy kicked him in the teeth earlier today and the last thing he wants is to see her, so stairs it is. 

“Still holding,” Ben says. “We’ll know by the time you come back from DC though.” 

Roman should tell him here that DC’s not happening anymore, his calendar clear, but that’s a leading bit of information and the idea of saying it out loud makes his pulse basically double. 

“Cool,” he says. Pushes himself to jog up the next ten flights, sweat dripping down his back by the end. 

“Oh good,” Gerri says, when they open the door to find her in their makeshift office, sitting on the couch, legs crossed. “You’re here.” She turns to Ben with a smile that’s so tight it could turn coal into goddamn diamonds. “Would you mind giving us a few moments alone?” 

Roman’s pretty sure the kid leaves skid marks in his wake, watches him go like the traitor he is. 

“Breaking and entering is a felony,” Roman says, voice as dry as one of her martinis. “I would think you’d worry a little more about getting disbarred.” 

“The building manager is about eighty and asks me out to dinner three times a year, so I think I’m fairly safe.” 

He doesn’t riff on the joke there, doesn’t even come near her. Goes off to stand in the kitchen and make himself something to eat because he skipped dinner and then breakfast again and that jog up the stairs has made him feel shaky, a little unsteady on his feet. 

There isn’t much in the fridge here but there’s enough to make a sandwich, so he sets to work, feels Gerri watching him as he haphazardly piles things onto two pieces of bread. 

“I’ve been texting you,” she says. “I called twice and then came by your apartment but you weren’t home.” He doesn’t respond to that, doesn’t offer up that he slept here so she doesn’t get the wrong idea about how he spent his night. “My PR team says you gave them carte blanche, told your own to tow the line.” 

“That was probably a mistake,” he says, lifting up his sandwich. “As I made clear to my team on the phone today.” 

“I heard that too,” Gerri says and she looks so soft here, unguarded in a way he can’t bring himself to trust. “I take it you objected to a word that was used.” 

“I object to a PR decision that locks us into something,” he says, pausing to take a bite. “It’s pretty clear that one of us has some regrets about this affiliation, so no, I don’t think a brilliant idea to go wallpapering the internet with happy pictures of us with my drooling dog.”

“I was angry yesterday morning,” she says. “Angry and scared.” 

“That makes two of us,” he bites out, heated now. “But my first thought was about you - being scared for _you_ \- and you literally kicked me out.” 

She’s so many things - beautiful and smart and fucking sharp, sharp like a knife. And he loves all of that, but she can also be distant and mercurial and hard to read, and he understands now that he’s been wired in a peculiar way that makes his brain light up like a Christmas tree when someone has those last three traits. Which sucks, it all fucking sucks, because now he’s standing in front of a woman he feels so much for, knowing she’s fully capable of casually scooping out his innards with a melon baller. 

He throws his sandwich in the trash here, doesn’t feel like eating more, but he needs something to do other than talk while she stares at him, so he pours himself some coffee. 

“Our teams had some thoughts on DC,” she says now, her voice sounding a little unsteady before it levels out. “They think we should go. Be seen. Pose for photos.” 

“Play the loving couple,” he drawls. “After you specifically told me you didn’t want me going.” 

“I didn’t mean -” She stops, looking up at the ceiling as she says, “I understand if you have no interest in going now. And I can certainly relay to my team that she should come up with something else. Something that doesn’t include you.” 

“They just ran all that lovey dovey shit,” he points out. “If you show up alone to everything now, it looks like everything my dad planted was right. You’re a silly fool who lost her head with an idiot and I’m some womanizing asshole who dropped you after two months, probably moved onto some model or whoever the fuck pathetic losers with stunted emotional growth choose to date in lieu of someone more compelling.” He grabs the rubber ball he was playing with yesterday, bouncing it again. “I’m not sure I care much for that option either.” 

“Your team can find a workaround for that. You’ll have some latitude, I think.” 

“Uh huh, and what about you? What about your latitude?” 

“That doesn’t have to be your problem,” she says, and he spins around here, missing the ball as it ricochets off the wall, slamming into his ankle. 

“Uh, fuck you,” he enunciates slowly. “I’m pissed at you and everything might be burning down around us, but I have literally always been on your side and you never trust that - even when you say you do - so please don’t act like it’s a real option for me to leave you twisting in the wind after my father’s fucked us both over. Because it’s not. And it never fucking would be.” 

She just stares at him here, tracking his movements as he grabs up the ball again, her eyes looking watery now, and he spins around so he can’t see her face. 

“I’m sorry,” she says and he can hear her getting up, and after that the sound of the door closing. 

. . . 

Roman books himself into another therapy appointment, hasn’t done back-to-back ones since the first month he got fired from Waystar, but he can’t keep food down, is sleeping like shit, knows if he doesn’t do something he’s going to end up drunkenly partying on some rooftop with posers who only want his money, spilling champagne everywhere while people offer him coke he holds onto for three minutes before handing it back. 

_Coffee_? he texts Ken. He doesn’t think he’ll hear anything back anytime soon, is just texting words into the ether in order to have something to do while he rides to his appointment, but Ken answers right away. 

_Tell me where to be_. 

The therapy appointment is shitty, unbelievably shitty and he actually cries, his therapist looking on with that sympathetic face that makes everything worse because Roman feels like he’s no longer a competent adult. He’s gotten good at therapy - really fucking good at therapy - and he can talk through things without hiding and actually tackle his blindspots, but talking about the Gerri stuff is horrible and being a crying a mess feels like losing two years of progress in a go. Right back to talking about his family dog that died and his mother maybe never loving him and the way he’d chase his father’s approval for years, an idiot bloodhound tracking a stuffed rabbit dragged through the dirt on a stick. 

He probably looks like shit when he shows up to meet Ken, but he’s had to pull a literal syringe out of his brother’s arm before so he thinks that score is still pretty solidly in his favor. 

“You good?” Ken asks him. Hands him the iced coffee he apparently ordered for him, the two of them walking down the street until they find a place that isn’t so fucking crowded.

“No,” Roman says. “No, I’m not fucking good.” 

“Yeah,” Ken says. Stares at him through his sunglasses. “I talked to Shiv and I don’t think she knew that was coming.” 

“You talked to Shiv?” Roman repeats. “Like the two of you in a room or on a phone, making sounds that might be construed as words? Actual words in English?”

“Something like that,” Ken says. 

“And how was that?”

“Not great,” Ken allows. “But I don’t think she knew about that stuff being thrown at Gerri. She said she called you twice to check in but you wouldn’t answer.” 

“A lot of that going around,” Roman says. Knows he’s being an asshole but he can’t handle anyone right now, can barely handle standing here with Ken. 

“She sounded really worried about you. Which is weird. Weird to hear her saying things that make it sound like she has an actual heart that pumps honest to God blood.” 

“Maybe she borrowed Tom’s.” That makes Kendall smirk, his face losing that pinched off expression he walks around with now. 

“I’m sorry everything is shit, but at least you and Gerri are in it together.” 

“Yep,” Roman says flippantly. “Fucking kumbaya. Totally simpatico.” 

Ken only stares at him here, Roman shifting on his feet and feeling fidgety, the coffee already making his anxiety worse as he twists around to stare at people passing them.

“You think that woman paid for that face specifically or did she just, like, piss off her surgeon right before she went under?’ 

. . . 

Their flight to DC leaves at a quarter to four and Roman turns up at the jet with anxiety nestled between his ribs, has this irrational fear that Gerri isn’t expecting him, no matter that Ben sent her a confirmation yesterday and he’s the one who chartered the plane in the first place. 

“Hey,” she says when she sees him. She has her laptop open and is obviously doing work, a cup of coffee on the table beside her. 

He could settle somewhere away from her, bunker down in his own work for the next hour and a half, but that kind of lead in will make for a long and exhausting next three days, so he plunks himself down beside her, their arms grazing when he sorts through his bag. 

He asks the flight attendant for a beer, something to take the edge off, and after that it’s mostly the sound of both of them typing away on their devices for a while, a brief phone call placed to Ben before they take off. 

“I got a confirmation from the hotel about an upgrade to the Imperial Suite,” Gerri says as the plane ascends. “You happen to know anything about that?” 

“Maybe,” he says. He thinks this could go either way, given that she told him the accommodations were already settled. 

“I gave up trying for that perk years ago,” she admits, which surprises him. “Was always told that it was booked up.” 

It probably was this time too, the hotel no doubt bumping someone else in favor of a Roy. 

“Helps to have that last name sometimes,” he says, keeping his tone light. “Like maybe once a year or so.” 

She settles her hand on his arm sometime after that and he lets himself enjoy the comfort of it for now. He went back and read all the texts from her he refused to open days ago, some of them forwards about the PR stuff but most of them pleas for him to call her, show her some sign of life. There was an apology mixed in there somewhere and he believes her, believed her when she said it the other day too, but her being sorry doesn’t change the fact that her first instinct is to push him away when she’s mad or scared. Doesn’t erase the hurt of it even though his anger’s mostly evaporated now, can’t extinguish the very rational worry that if things go on between them, they’ll just keep doing this same confusing dance. 

“My ex-husband’s going to be at the gala tomorrow,” she says, and he closes his laptop here. Gives her his full attention. “I’m only telling you so it isn’t an unpleasant surprise.” 

“Does he make a habit of stalking you?” he asks, and she smirks at that. 

“I think he’d argue it’s me doing the stalking since he’s the one that lives back in DC now. But I’ve been on the committee for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society since before our divorce, so he comes to these events at his own peril.” 

“Why’d you join the committee?” he asks, and her face goes blank for a moment. 

“Sorry?” she asks, clicking at something on her idle laptop screen.

“What made you join to begin with?” 

“Lymphoma’s what my mother died of,” she says. “And then ten years after that my sister.” 

“I didn’t know you had a sister,” he says, treading lightly. Never something that comes easily to him. 

“She was fourteen years older.” She smiles here and Roman’s sure it’s forced. “I was most assuredly an accident because no parent in their right mind wants to go back to changing diapers when their other kid is mostly self-sufficient, almost old enough to drive themselves around.” 

“My mom once told me that I was only conceived because of a bottle of scotch and her desperate desire to end a discussion with my dad about a house remodel.” 

“Jesus Christ. She told you that? That’s horrible.” 

“Oh, she’s a delight. Mary Poppins with a touch of satan tossed in.” They both chuckle at that, and something loosens ever so slightly in his chest. 

“You’re so open about the bad shit,” she says, sounding serious now, thoughtful. “You can talk so freely about it even though it hurts you and I. . . I just can’t do that. I have to button it up, file it away so I can keep moving forward.” 

“I can talk about it because of a shitload of therapy and let me just say, a shrink would tsk at you here about repression. Maybe lots of other fun, buzzy words.” He isn’t trying to be judgy but he knows he can be an enabler, everyone in his family enabled his dad all damn day, everyday, and he’s trying to do better. Be better. 

“I’m well aware,” she sighs. “And I’m not making excuses for it. I’m just saying that I don’t talk to anyone about the bad shit and on the rare occasion I do, the person I talk to is you.” 

“Thank you,” he says, not sure what other words he can manage to string together here. Pats the hand that still rests on his arm. “I assure you, I’m still here for all of your talking needs.” 

The weather is shit when they land. New York has started to cool down but apparently DC has no desire to follow suit, the air humid and miserable as he jogs down the jet bridge. 

Gerri has a few bags, probably her shit for the gala, and there’s no staff immediately in sight, which is just fucking perfect, so Roman takes it all off her hands, muttering about what congressman they need to blow to get a little assistance on the tarmac. 

He didn’t hire a car service, has a moment of panic where he thinks maybe Gerri didn’t either and they’re just going to be stuck here, staring at each other, but clearly she did because there’s a driver waiting inside, her name on a placard in his hands, and he relieves Roman of all the luggage without uttering a single word. 

“I always forget this place is fucking swamp land,” Roman grouses in the car, Gerri smiling benevolently while he pouts. 

“You get used to it.” 

“Oh yeah?” 

“I lived here for almost a decade,” she says casually. “Trust me, you acclimate.” 

“Gerri Kellman, did you bring me to land of your youthful indiscretions?”

“Hardly,” she says, reaching for a water bottle that’s waiting in a cup holder. “It was law school and then the first few years of being a junior associate at a demanding firm. I barely had time for sleep.”

Check in at the hotel takes about one minute since they basically get to bypass the front desk, someone escorting them to their suite, suitcases being rolled behind them. 

“Thanks,” Roman says, shaking the guy’s hand with a hundred tucked into his palm. Never hurts to make a good first impression. 

“Alright,” she says, walking around, "color me impressed. I’ll never be satisfied with the Presidential Suite after this.” 

“I’ve created a monster,” he pronounces and she nods at this. 

“Maybe I’ll just start dropping your name at places. Claim to be a long lost Roy.” 

The most obvious name change joke is an awkward one about getting married and Roman bypasses it, watches as Gerri shifts on her feet, probably thinking the same thing. 

“The one in Abu Dhabi comes equipped with a shark tank,” he blurts out, which startles a laugh out of her. 

“What on earth were you doing there?” 

“Buying a race car,” he admits. Cringes only a little because it’s kind of a fun story. 

“And now all you want is to walk your dog and watch documentaries,” she teases him. “How the mighty have fallen.” 

“And have meals with you,” he tacks on. “Don’t forget the eating with you part.” 

He gets a soft smile for that and it feels like being handed a blue ribbon, the same way it always does. No matter what happens after this, he can’t imagine a way forward where he doesn’t want to make her smile. 

Every Imperial Suite he’s ever stayed in has had two separate bedrooms, but apparently this one only has the one and he’s not sure whether to have the conversation now or later.

“I’ll sleep on the couch,” he says, deciding to just rip the band-aid off. 

“You will not,” she says, obviously taken back. “Roman, that isn’t necessary.” 

“It is though,” he says. “It’s been nice to spend time with you today but we haven’t talked about anything or made any decisions, and until then I don’t want to go muddying the waters.” 

“Please don't use my own words against me.” She’s sitting in a chair now, looking for all the world like she’s holding court, but she doesn’t sound angry here. “We can just sleep. I get what you’re saying and I promise to respect it.” 

“I’m not worried about you,” he replies, which is only a little true. “I’m worried about me. Seeing you triggers a Pavlovian response from me, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea right now.” 

She rolls her eyes. 

“I need a nap,” she announces. “Will you wake me up in a half an hour?” 

He fucks around on his phone while she sleeps. Checks in with Ben and then replies to something Ken sent him. Sends a horrible meme to Shiv because he knows it’ll piss her off. 

_Are you in DC for the Leukemia Ball?_ she asks him, and he sends her a thumbs up. Assumes there’s already a story planted somewhere about it, which is obnoxious because they literally just got here, but whatever. 

_Tom and I are going._ He curses at his phone when he reads that. _Flying in tomorrow morning._

_Guess I’ll see you soon then_. That’s the third draft of his response and by far the lamest, but it’s better than handing her info she might pass onto their dad. 

“Gerri,” he says, when it’s time to wake her up. She didn’t even get under the covers, apparently just took down her hair and sat her glasses beside her, Roman moving them when he sits on the bed. “Ger, time to wake up.” 

She must be really exhausted because she seems disoriented when she opens her eyes, blinking up at him in confusion. 

“Rome,” she sighs. “What time is it?” 

“Half past seven,” he says, carding his fingers through her hair now. “You want me to have some food sent up?” 

“No,” she says, her voice still thick with sleep. “We should go out, go someplace nice.” He’s still petting her hair and she nuzzles into his hand. 

He can see the moment she really wakes up because her eyes focus in on him, watching him as he stares down at her, a dopey expression probably on his face. 

She turns her head, kissing one of his fingers, and he freezes, feels something familiar spark up in his belly. 

“Sorry,” she says and pulls her mouth away. But she’s still staring at him, clearly baiting him, and he doesn’t have it in him to be mad at that. 

“No you aren’t.” He gets off the bed with a smile, watching her sit up and smooth out her hair. 

“No,” she smirks back. “I’m not.”

He freezes a little when they head out of the hotel, realizes there’s no doubt a photographer trailing them on this trip, maybe even watching them right now. Waystar’s. Her PR team’s. Maybe both. 

It’s hard to know how to act.

“We don’t have to put on a show,” she says, straightening his tie before they get in the car. “Just relax.”

They go someplace with a view of the Potomac and a clientele that reeks of old money. 

“Thrilling to look at it is not,” she allows. “But the food is always great.”

She doesn’t order a cocktail so he doesn’t either, both of them taking an awkward beat when they decline the drink menu. 

“Maybe later,”she says. “But you indulge away.”

“Nah,” he says. “I’ll put the calories toward that cheesecake I’m already eyeing.”

“The chocolate cake is better.”

He makes her order for both of them, a mountain of food arriving in waves.

“Are you trying to make me fat?” he asks her. “Developing a fetish?”

“You look like you’ve dropped weight,” she says and he knows she’s right. His face seemed a little gaunt in the mirror this morning and his pants feel loose. 

“Haven’t felt like eating,” he admits, and she looks so concerned here that he wishes he’d lied, talked about some bullshit juice cleanse.

They chat through dinner, Gerri telling him about living here and then going to New York, how it was hard to leave the few friends she’d managed to make during her rare off time. 

“Do I get to meet any of them?” he asks, not thinking about what he’s saying as he attacks a pile of crab cakes. He looks up and sees that her expression has changed to something less open, more guarded. “Sorry. That was a stupid thing to ask.”

“None of them will be at the gala,” she says, carefully picking her way through some salmon now. “But I’d planned on brunch Sunday. There’s a place we all go, you’d like the Belgian waffles there.”

“Do you want me to go?” he asks, after he clears his throat from swallowing wrong. Sips his water.

“I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do,” she replies, and she sounds so fucking careful here, like she’s in court and if she says the wrong thing some gropey media mogul gets off scot-free. 

“Hey,” he says, putting his fork down. “That wasn’t a test.” He grabs her hand. “Gerri, look at me.” 

“I’m looking at you,” she says, sounding defensive now, but that’s better than before, that impassable face she saves for people she doesn’t trust.

“I’d be happy to meet your friends but I’ll also understand if you’d rather go alone. The last week was a fucking shitshow, so I’m gonna leave it up to you. It’s okay either way, really.”

She nods at that, looks relieved maybe. 

“Shiv’s apparently coming to the thing tomorrow,” he says. He thought about not telling her until right before, maybe delay the fallout, but that’s a shitty thing to do and he’d only feel worse.

“I wondered,” she says. “I think she’s come before and obviously she’s pivoting back to politics now. Her candidate in Connecticut looks pretty solid this time.” He blinks at her here and she gives him a placating smile. “Siobhan is the least of my worries, I assure you.”

“Would you like to discuss the other worries?” he asks, dabbing his face with his napkin.

“Yes, but not here, surrounded by the city’s most geriatric elite.”

The heat and humidity have let up by the time they get out of the restaurant, Gerri saying something about it being a nice night for a walk. 

“Do you know how to get back to the hotel from here?” 

“Of course,” she says, sounding a little offended. Dismisses their driver, Roman loitering behind her. 

She slips her hand into his after a block and he doesn’t know if that’s because she wants to hold his hand or because it makes for a nice image, a sharp doubt that slices into him every time their shoulders brush, her hip bumping into his when they pause at an intersection, waiting for traffic to clear. 

He knows they’ll talk when they get back to the hotel, maybe try to sort things out, but the idea of a resolution is a terrifying prospect to him now. He feels desperate to cling onto this moment of limbo, her rings pushing softly into the joints of his fingers.

“Are any of these bars at all decent?” he asks, when they’ve been walking a bit. He thinks they’re close to the hotel, restaurants lining either side of the street, but his sense of direction is horrible and she could be walking them to Maryland for all he knows. 

“A little touristy,” she says, pulling a face. “Or filled with kids from Georgetown and GW. Did you want to stop somewhere?”

“Only if you’re up for it.” 

She looks around, clearly orienting herself before she pulls him by the hand, back the way they came. They end up in a little bar and restaurant tucked into a side street, the entrance hidden from view, sitting behind a footbridge that juts over a narrow canal. There are maybe four people in the whole place and the bartender doesn’t even look up from his phone when they walk in. 

The bar is old and wooden, the kind of thing he knows she likes, but she leads them to a booth that’s right beside it, slides in on the same side as him. 

“The wine here is good.” She hands him the list. Slips her glasses out of her purse and checks her phone, pecking something out as he peruses. “Is this your team’s doing?” she asks, holding up her phone to show him a picture of him and Ken walking down the street, both of them smiling, Roman gesturing in the air like a kid who’s huffed up too much Ritalin. 

“Nope,” he says. “Must be Ken’s.” 

“It’s a good photo of the two of you.” 

“I think that was when he was pitching me something to do together, business wise. I said no.” 

“Wise,” she says. “Keep things separate.” 

“We make a good team on occasion, but mostly it brings out bad habits and old grudges, so no fucking thanks.” He orders them a bottle of wine and she seems surprised at that, but he’d like to burn a little time in here and they don’t have to drink it all. “Do you have an early morning?” 

“No,” she says. “I don’t have to turn up at the venue until five.” It’s clear she wants to say something else, but the bar is quiet, no background noise to drown them out, and he watches her decide against it, her gaze shifting away from his face. 

“Did you get a lot of shit from daughters?” 

“Not as much as I was expecting,” she admits. Lets her arm rest against his after the wine comes, Roman pouring for both of them. “They were mostly upset I hadn’t told them, which is a recurrent theme I guess.” 

“My parents told me too much,” he says, his arm winding around her shoulder because it’s hard not to touch her, especially when her face is so open. “I don’t know that there’s any winning on that front.” She hums here, her body relaxing against him. 

“I’m pretty sure there’s a happy medium residing somewhere between those extremes.” They can see the door from where they’re seated and no one else has come in, it’s still the same handful of people and a bored out of his mind bartender. If this is a Friday night around here, this place is either about to fail or is only a front for some kind of money laundering. “The Senate thing isn’t real,” she says suddenly. “I’ve been asked to consider it once before and I said no that time, would probably no again this time too.”

“Seemed pretty real when you were angry about it blowing up,” he notes. Tries to be gentle, not sound as doubtful and annoyed as he feels. 

“It’s one thing to turn something down,” she says. “It’s another to have the choice ripped right out of your hands.” He understands that, he does, but there’s a metaphor lurking in that last statement and she’s smart enough to know it, no need for him to go pointing it out like an asshole. “I miss you when I go a day without talking to you. And I've spent a lot of time building up a life that doesn’t depend on anyone else, so that has to mean something.” She turns to him here, her face only a few inches from his. “Roman, that has to mean something.” 

“Alright,” he says and her face slackens with hurt at that, but she doesn’t know what more she expects from him. He’s not an idiot, he knows she enjoys his company as much as he likes hers, but she also told him she didn’t have any more promises in her and that’s been proven pretty soundly this week. So maybe they just salvage some kind of friendship out of this, go back a few months to when he was making jokes about her pedicures and gossiping over takeout. 

That much might not even be possible, but he can’t even consider that yet. Can’t fathom not sharing meals with her or sitting next to her like this. 

They drink up all the wine and then walk to the hotel in silence. There’s a butler that comes with the suite but they declined the service at check-in, find only a bottle of wine waiting for them and some fruit that’ll be good for breakfast. But there’s still an entire night to get through first, Roman debating whether he should pop one of the sleeping pills he has stashed in his bag. 

There’s two bathrooms, no need to choreograph their night time routine around each other, and while Gerri’s still washing her face or putting on one of her five million creams, he hunts around for extra blankets and pillows, relieved when he finds them, no need to call the concierge. 

“Are you really going to sleep out here?” she asks, when she comes back out in a robe to find him perched on the nest he’s made, his legs dangling off the back of the couch as he texts on his phone. 

“I’ll be fine,” he says. Ignores the way her expression has darkened, her mouth set in a hard line. Like he’s doing this just to be an asshole or something. 

“Well goodnight then,” she says, and disappears into the bedroom. Closes the door so softly he doesn't hear the click of it catching. 

. . . 


	14. Chapter 14

He probably should have taken a pill because he wakes up after two hours and can’t get back to sleep. 

There’s a massive TV but he doesn’t want to risk waking Gerri, knows he’ll have to fuck around forever with the remote to put on the captions and will still accidentally blare the surround sound, so he sets up his laptop instead. Cues up an old movie he knows by heart, hopes hearing it will relax him some. 

He’s halfway through it when Gerri sits down next him, the motion startling the living daylights out of him because he has his headphones in, didn’t hear her creep up. 

“What are you doing up?” he asks, ever the fucking hypocrite, but he’s never known her to wake in the night.

“I’ve been sleeping like shit lately,” she admits, and with her makeup off he can see the dark bags under her eyes, the skin of her cheeks looking papery. “And I hate the idea of you being out here.” 

“Quite the pair,” he says, pausing the movie. “You can’t sleep and I can’t eat.” 

“You ate tonight,” she points out. Sits back a little on the couch. “Is that Bette Davis?” 

“My favorite aupair used to watch this all the time. I can’t see the appeal of most old movies, they’re all boring as fuck, but this one used to be switched on around bedtime and it still makes me sleepy.” He feels ridiculous admitting that out loud. Hurriedly shuts the laptop so he doesn’t have to see the film staring back at him anymore. 

“Do you want to talk now?” she asks him. Rests her head on the back of the couch, propped up under one of her arms. 

“You first,” he says. Doesn’t mean to be flippant, he’s just feeling raw and defensive and honestly, he doesn’t know what she’s looking for here. 

“I’ve been talking a lot lately,” she says. “You haven’t been particularly receptive, especially to me apologizing.” 

“I’m not sure what to do with your apology,” he says. “I mean, I appreciate it and I know you feel bad, but what about the next time the universe hands us a shit sandwich? I’m still me, my last name isn’t going away, so maybe we’re better off as friends if you think I complicate your life.” 

“I like the way you complicate your life,” she says, and she sounds so tired, it’s hard to keep arguing with her. 

“Sometimes you do,” he shrugs. “Maybe even most of the time. But that other ten or twenty percent really bites me in the dick, doesn’t it?” 

“Okay.” She takes a deep breath. 

He can see herself walling herself up, running exit strategies in his head, and he hates that too. Wishes he could just crack his head open so she should see inside. 

“You’re the first thing I think about when I get up” he tells her, “and I sprint through whole days waiting to hear your voice. But knowing you don’t really trust me is way worse than any shitty story my dad could plant about me being a fuck up.” 

She looks like she’s going to cry here, which is apparently the only thing that could make this conversation worse, so he tugs her by the hand until her back rests against his chest, his arms wrapped around her, his chin on her shoulder. 

“I’m not sure what you want,” she says, her voice so unsteady that it sounds warped, unlike herself. “In the beginning of this you basically said we could be friends with benefits.” 

“Which was stupid. Colossally fucking stupid because even when I said that I felt a lot more for you than fucking friendship.” He’s careful not to say the word he’s been swallowing down for weeks whenever he looks at her. He’s told people before that he loved them, but he’s not sure he ever meant it, it was just a trick of the light, a way to make them stay, and he doesn’t want to do that with Gerri. He thinks it might even send her running in the opposite direction. But he still feels her relax a little here, her weight settling more solidly against his chest, and that feels like a substantial enough victory. “Can I meet your friends on Sunday?” 

“I’d like that,” she says quickly. “I’d been looking forward to it.” 

“Alright,” he sighs against her. “So brunch on Sunday with your friends. A gala with dubious company tomorrow. And this for now.” 

“One step at a time?” She twists in his lap when he says it, her eyes just barely catching his, and he kisses her where her jaw meets her cheek. 

“One step at a time,” he confirms, relieved when he stays put against him. 

He wakes up in the bed. Blearily recalls them restarting the movie from the beginning and then Gerri dragging him to bed when it was over, pressing him in and pulling the blankets over him, the sound of her settling on the opposite side, tucked away from him. 

He thinks he’ll roll over and she’ll still be there, that maybe he can just rest a knee or an ankle against her until she wakes up, but her side of the bed is empty and when he shuffles to the bathroom he hears the sound of voices out in the living room. 

He’s wearing a t-shirt and shorts but he still cautiously peers out, looking for whoever Gerri was talking to a minute ago. 

“I had breakfast brought up,” she says, when he turns up in the suite’s dining room, a full spread laid out on the table. 

“There was already some fruit,” he yawns. Maybe he’ll want to eat something later, but all he can think about now is coffee. 

“There’s a double espresso,” she says, “if you want it.” 

“Thank you,” he murmurs. 

She’s set up a little work station for herself on the far side of the dining table, laptop open and papers spread out in neat piles with post-it notes, and as he passes he touches her shoulder. 

“Better?” she asks, after he downs his caffeine. 

“Much,” he allows. “Nearly a fucking human now.” 

“Let’s not get carried away.” He smirks at that. Picks up a croissant and tears a tiny piece off, throwing at her. 

“Don’t start something you can’t finish,” she warns, and it makes him laugh out loud. 

It already feels better this morning, like they’re on more even footing or something, neither of them bracing for impact. 

“I assume you need to do work most of the day,” he says, loading a plate up now. 

“Only a little actually. I got up early to knock it out.” She closes her laptop here, getting up to inspect the food before she serves herself some fruit and a single piece of toast. “I was hoping we go out and do something, if you’re up for it.” 

“Sure,” he says. “Are we gonna protest? Maybe get tear gassed with a bunch of Antifa fucks?” 

“We could try,” she says, that lilting voice she uses when she’s mocking him. “But they don’t usually tear gas the rich white people and you stink of privilege.” 

“Alright,” he says, watching as she sits down in the seat right next to him. “So if we’re not chaining ourselves to something and getting arrested, then what?” 

“Well, I always visit the National Gallery and it’s closed tomorrow, so I’d like to do that today. After that, whatever you feel like, I think.” 

He’s never been into museums and art galleries are always the worst, but he thinks he could do much worse than following her around an air conditioned building while she stares at boring old oil paintings, maybe buys another scarf she won’t wear on the way through the gift shop. 

“Sounds like a plan,” he agrees. Works his way through five pieces of bacon and two waffles.

They’re almost out the door when Ben texts him with messages from his PR team. Apparently there’s an article in the works about everything that happened in Japan and another one about his love life, quotes from some of his exes about what a horrible human he is. Tabitha isn’t mentioned and he hopes she’s one of the holdouts, but who knows. He doesn’t think he can count on her loyalty.

“This might not be the best day for you to be seen on my arm,” he tells Gerri, handing her his phone. “Maybe you should go without me.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she says, scrolling and reading. “Let’s just go.”

“No, really,” he stops her, feeling panicky. “It’s okay to ditch me today. I mean, just about everything in there is true, though I would like it fucking noted that it’s not really a threesome if one person leaves the room to make himself a sandwich and never comes back after that.” Her eyebrows shoot up over her reading glasses. “Look, that’s way too many limbs and hair and fluids, and with those odds, I guarantee you someone is going to smell weird. And bacon has never once disappointed me, so. . .”

“Was it really two models?” she asks, pausing at a particular bit of text.

“Eastern European models. Which, as everyone knows, is the most downmarket kind.” 

“You turned down a threesome with two models -“

“Downmarket models!”

“But you don’t trust yourself to sleep in the same bed with me.”

“Well you’re you,” he fails, Gerri staring at him like she’s confused even though everything about this is simple and obvious. “You’re insanely hot and you’ve got that voice. I tell you everything, even the horrible shit, and my dog likes you. Of course my dick is a fucking compass that always points due Gerri. Come on, how could it not.”

The kiss she gives him is close mouthed, her hands resting on his arms. He’s about to deepen it, pull her against him, when she pulls back. Gives him a soft smile. 

“Take me to the museum,” she says, her hand resting in his chest. “Be my date tonight and dance with me in front of your shrew of a sister and my jackass of an ex-husband.”

“Okay,” he says. Nods once. 

. . .

He doesn’t so much look at the art as he does just watch Gerri looking at the art. The gallery seems crowded today, lots of people trooping around in guided groups, parents shepherding cranky little brats through rooms, and Roman feels exhausted just watching it all. 

Gerri takes hold of his hand when he circles around to her twenty minutes in, her thumb worrying his knuckle as she stares at some medieval Christian bullshit. There are portraits a few rooms over, most of them boring as fuck, but one of them is a woman lying mostly naked on a chaise, a blush spreading across her face, and Roman remembers that first night with Gerri, her sitting naked on his bed and talking to him while her face was still flushed from sex.

He doesn’t realize he’s been standing there a while until Gerri saddles up beside him.

“Why this one?” she asks him, her brow furrowing, and he doesn’t trust himself to speak, feels a sudden clenching in his chest. Manages only a shrug.

There’s an underground pass through to the more modern stuff and Gerri surprises him here by nudging him over to the line for a dinky little gelato place.

“It’s not even lunchtime,” he laughs, delighted and surprised.

“It’s a tradition,” she says. “I always stop here. Used to bribe the girls with it, just to make it all the way through to the end.”

The line is painfully slow moving, people still hemming and hawing about flavors once they’ve reached the fucking front of the line, but he doesn’t actually feel that impatient. Gerri’s holding his hand again, chewing her lip like she’s deciding something serious even though she’s just staring at the flavors on the marquis, and while they’re standing in place it feels like something slots neatly into his chest. 

“I want this,” he says suddenly.

“Which flavor?

“No, not that,” he blurts. “You asked me last night what I wanted and it’s this.” The family in front of them shuffles forward, Gerri closing the gap, her hand tugging him along as she stares at him. “I want lazy Sundays holding hands with you and bullshit art that only one of us takes seriously and finding out that you’re secretly a gelato fiend who clearly has trouble picking a fucking flavor.”

She starts to say something but then it’s their turn, Roman completely forgetting what flavor he decided on, Gerri waiting patiently as he decides again and then paying for their sugar rush with a polite smile given to the woman at the register.

“Thank you,” Gerri says to her, taking the napkins the woman hands her. “You were saying,” she prompts, leading Roman to the only vacant table in visual range, a family with two squirming kids descending on it before they can properly claim it.

“Son of a bitch,” he mutters, Gerri elbowing him for that, and they end up on the far side of the room, hovering by a glass wall with some kind of weird water feature behind it.

He feels self-conscious now, impulsive and stupid for talking about it here, but she’s watching him as she carefully spoons her first few bites of gelato into her mouth. The tiniest little spoonfuls, like she’s trying to draw it out forever. 

“You were saying,” she repeats, nothing pointed about her tone. Just two people who couldn’t get a table at a busy museum cafe, huddled together, eating their sugary snacks as throngs of people drag noisily by them. 

She’s wearing her contacts, her eyes big and blue whenever she watches him, and he thinks he might quit working entirely if it means he can spend more time like this, just the two of them staring at each other in silence.

“I don’t just want dinners and sex,” he says eventually. “I want a life with you. I’ve never wanted kids and I don’t think I actually give a shit about marriage or maybe even living together, but I want to plan my weeks around yours and deal with your daughters hating me and maybe take vacations like this where we stand in crowded places I’d normally fucking hate.”

“I thought you were enjoying yourself here,” she stops him, and of course that’s the thing she decided to fucking focus on.

“I am,” he gestures, annoyed and frustrated now. “That’s the point. I’d probably like anything if you’re right next to me, holding my clammy ass hand.” He nervously shovels his gelato now, not looking at her anymore because maybe being this honest was a mistake. “I just don’t think that’s what you want out of this.”

“It is,” she says immediately, some kind of sigh he can’t interpret punctuating the statement. “Rome, it is. I’m just not very good at being in love. But I am trying.” An older couple walks past them, Gerri clearly tracking the way one of them limps, using a cane, the other slowing to keep astride, no apparent hurry as impatient people bottleneck around them. “This is me trying.”

“In love, huh,” he repeats, which probably makes him an asshole, but he can’t help it. Feels himself beaming like an idiot because he never thought she’d say it, let alone say it first. 

“Yes,” she says, a little tersely now. “We don’t have to talk about it if -“

He kisses her, cutting off whatever bitchy thing is about to fly out of her mouth. Tastes the chocolate and peanut butter of her gelato when she opens her mouth against him. 

“I’ve loved you for a while now,” he says, after he pulls away. Grabs her spoon and steals a bite because his is long gone and he might actually like hers better anyway. 

“That’s mine,” she complains, pulling her spoon away. “Not my problem you gobbled yours down like an animal.”

“Sorry,” he says. “But I think you have to share your chocolate with me now. It’s part of the package.”

“You’re thinking of community property and we’re not there yet, so no, now given me back my spoon, you greedy little pig.” She twists to grab it and he ducks her, kissing her again, the plastic gelato cup nearly crushed between them. “Greedy,” she tsks again, pulling away with a smile that goes right to his groin.

“Only when it comes to you.” She seems pleased with that, finishing her gelato with a few lascivious flicks of tongue thrown in. “Mean,” he chuckles. “Fucking mean.”

They make it through the modern wing quickly, neither of them moved much by anything, Gerri checking her phone five times in the span of a few minutes. 

“PR team,” she admits, shoving the phone back in her purse. “Nothing to worry about.” He’s unconvinced of that, but he has no desire to check his own phone. Follows her out one of the entrances, squinting in the midday sun as she looks around, searching for something. “You want to see the sculpture garden?”

“Not unless it’s in an air conditioned bubble.”

“Fine. What next?” 

They meet up with the car service, nominally to regroup and enjoy some air conditioning, but a few minutes into idling on the side of a street, Gerri checking her phone again, he slides over and kisses her.

“We can’t do this in a car,” she groans, his mouth having moved down to her neck, one of her breasts in his hand. “It’s been days. It has to at least be on a soft piece of furniture.”

“We’re not gonna have sex in the car,” he promises. “I’m just continuing our grand tradition of nearly having sex in cars.” Maybe they can do this in different cars across all kinds of cities, like some sort of souvenir collection. But, like, way fucking better.

“We have to be more responsible than this,” she says, but the words are breathy and she’s holding his head in place while he mouths at the part of her chest that he can access over her top.

“I really fucking love you,” he says, pressing kisses along her collar bone, and pretty quickly she’s groaning and in his lap, one of his thighs working it’s way between her jean clad legs, pressing into her as she grinds down on it again and again.

“Rome,” she gasps, her hair falling into his face, and he pushes his knee up a little higher, sucking her tongue briefly into his mouth as her hips roll and then freeze in place, the muscles in her lower back spasming under his splayed fingers. “Oh.” It’s such a tiny sound, but he’d know it anywhere, could pick it out in the chaotic din of Lincoln Center.

She goes a little limp after she comes, head tucked into the crook of his neck. 

“That doesn’t count as car sex,” she says.

“It does not,” he readily agrees, arms cradling her. “Just a little harmless dry humping brought to surprise fruition.”

She nods weakly, her forehead still pressing into him.

They don’t really have time to do anything else because she apparently has someone coming to the hotel to do her hair and makeup and now they both need to shower. He fights the urge to apologize, holding her hand instead, his thumb running back and forth over her knuckles as some kind of motorcade passes them.

Gerri starts to giggle two blocks away from the hotel, her free hand pressed over her mouth like she’s trying to keep the sound in.

. . .

The gala looks pretty boring, all things considered, but Shiv and Tom are apparently at their table and Roman’s halfway tempted to switch the placards around before people start arriving.

“Don’t even think about it,” Gerri glares at him, apparently seeing the thought bubbles spring up over his head as he stares at the table and placards. “I did that deliberately.” 

“Fuck’s sake. Why?”

“Your sister’s a sniper,” she replies calmly, doling out a fake smile to someone who’s waving from across the room. “Easier to deal with her at close range where she’s far less competent.” Roman only balks here, mostly because that’s pretty fucking spot on. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but most of your family thinks they’re smarter than they actually are because they’ve always had smarter people around to quietly clean up their messes.”

“Whereas I know I’m an idiot,” he drawls, trying to get a rise out of her, Gerri’s nails digging into his arm as the woman who was waving at her now crosses to join them. 

Most of the conversation is boring and Gerri carries it, Roman chiming in occasionally, trying not to sound like an asshole. But just everyone in the rapidly filling space seems to want to suck up to Gerri, mostly ignoring him all together, and that’s a kind of relief. 

“Alright,” Gerri says, when they have maybe thirty seconds of alone time. “That’s my ex-husband over there, along with his child bride, so I’m going to go say hello and get that out of the fucking way.”

“You don’t want me to go with you?”

“Dear God, no.” He’s a little surprised by that, can’t decide whether he should be hurt.

“I only keep things civil because of the girls and if he’s an ass, you’ll be an ass back. Thank you for being willing to go over, but I’ll pass on the male posturing.”

“I’ll try to remember not to pee on you during dinner then. You know, mark my little territory.”

She glares at him as she glides off and he salutes her as he sits down, trying to feign inattention as he tracks her, watching her stop in front of a guy about his height, glasses, a mop of graying curly hair and a not great suit. He isn’t sure what he was expecting but this guy wasn’t it. The woman on his arm kind of looks like Tabitha, a tiny bit anyway, and he remembers here that one of Gerri’s daughters looks a little like Tabitha, which means that Gerri’s prick of an ex-husband married a chick who resembles his own daughter. 

Fucking gross. 

“Don’t pick a fight with him, he looks like he’d be a bleeder,” Shiv says, turning up beside him. 

“Hey,” he says, a little startled. He gets out of the chair he’s loafing in to hug her. “Didn’t see you come in.”

“We were talking with someone I used to work with,” she says. “A little black ops before dinner.”

“As one does,” he smirks. Watches out of the corner of his eye as Gerri’s face takes on that one expression that means she wants to castrate someone, is deciding how to go about it as she smiles at them. 

“Doesn’t seem to be going poorly,” Shiv says. “Maybe not everyone’s as bad at divorce as Roy’s are.”

“Eh, it’s fine,” he lies. “Hey, here comes your awkward rag doll of a husband.”

“Hi, hi,” Tom says and Roman rolls his eyes dramatically, already moving away because no, he doesn’t have it in him to be nice to Wambsgans now if he also has to be nice all through dinner. 

“My sister’s here,” Roman announces to Gerri, turning up by arm and touching her back. He ignores the two people she’s standing with because honestly, they don’t matter and if he says something to her idiot ex-husband here (is it Jack? Gerald? John?), it will absolutely be vile because the dude is a stubby little asshole who thought he could do better than Gerri. 

“Right,” Gerri says, her smile so thin it could probably be used to make condoms. “Well, nice to see you, if you’ll excuse us.” 

“Roman Roy?” the Tabitha-daughter-clone says here, and Roman really fucking hates when people act like they’re not sure they’ve placed him correctly. It’s so insincere and it’s always bullshit, he much prefers the people who hate him on sight and just walk away. 

“That’s me,” he says, trying to sound charming. “I’m sorry, I don’t believe we’ve met.” 

“Melissa,” she supplies, her eyelash extensions blinking and blinking. “We spoke at your sister-in-law’s birthday party, a few years ago. The one at the Gansevoort.” 

If it’s the one he’s thinking of, the only thing he remembers is quietly cleaning Ken up after he puked in the bathroom, Rava already talking about a trial separation sometime around then. 

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m horrible with names. Nice to meet you though.” 

Gerri moves them away after that, doesn’t seem particularly pissed if her expression is anything to go by, but then they’re in public and she could just be holding it in. 

“Sorry,” he says. “Didn’t mean to crowd you, I just needed to dodge my idiot brother-in-law.” 

“No need,” she replies, her arm looped through his now. “If I’d known you were so proficient at being waspish and backhanded, I would have taken you with me to begin with.” 

“I honestly don’t remember meeting that woman,” he says. “And why didn’t you tell me your ex-husband was short?” 

Dinner is pretty tedious, Shiv and Gerri carry the whole table with talk of how much money the gala usually raises and various bits of DC politics. 

“Is Gerri short for Geraldine?” Tom asks when the main course is being served, cater waiters fanning out around them. 

“It is,” Gerri replies, absolutely no expression on her face. “And interestingly enough, all three of the people who referred to me by that name are already dead.” She nods at the server setting her plate down. “Maybe that isn’t causation or even correlation, but I wouldn’t court the risk if I were you.” 

Roman chokes on his wine at that. Glances over at Shiv to see that she’s hiding behind her sparkling water, obviously trying not to laugh in her husband’s fucking face. Nothing after that is nearly as funny or enjoyable, but Roman's happy for the single win. 

Gerri gets up to give a speech at some point, everyone’s attention rapt as she speaks, and Shiv sneaks over into the vacant chair, poking Roman in the ribs. 

“She looks really good for the Senate run,” she whispers. “Even after being associated with your weird little dick. Small downtick in support among the leftists but she’d be a centrist candidate anyway and no doubt Wall Street likes her more now.” He ignores her, trying hard to listen to Gerri over his sister’s bullshit, and Shiv jabs him in the ribs again. 

“Sh,” Roman says, elbow jutting out to quickly hit her in the arm. “I’m trying to hear her.” 

“Don’t fuck it up for her is all I’m saying. She looks good for it.” 

He gives her a sarcastic thumbs up so she’ll shut the fuck up. Listens to Gerri finishing her speech to a round of applause. 

He kisses her on the cheek when she gets back to the table, not caring that people are staring at them now, Gerri smiling at him and stealing his glass of wine, his hand possessively on her hip. 

“I was promised a dance,” he says, when the music starts up. 

“I have to work the room a little first,” she sighs. “Squeeze more money out of a few more people.” 

“I’m a person,” he says, his chin on her bare shoulder now. “I have money.” 

“And I will happily take some for the cause, but you’re a sure thing and these other fucks need to be milked, so give me maybe thirty minutes to make the rounds. Then we can dance.” He pouts here, Gerri ignoring him. 

“Dance with me,” Shiv demands, Tom nowhere in sight. 

“With you?” Roman repeats, pulling a face. “All _Flowers in the Attic_? Hard pass.” 

“Dance with me,” Shiv demands again, pushing him forward. “There are people here I fucking hate and I need a reason not to talk to them.”

“I promise, they’re already super fucking busy avoiding you.” She pinches his arm pretty savagely for that, Roman trying to hide the pain under a smile as people pass them, nodding in recognition. He knows she just wants to corner him about Gerri again, so he decides to go on the offensive. “So how long have you been growing another little Roy in there?” 

“Huh?” she asks, pretending to be confused by the question, but her beat is off now and she nearly steps on his foot twice. 

“I haven’t seen you with any booze in your hand for weeks and apparently you expressed concern to Ken when dad started going after me last week. So either you’re growing a little gremlin in that thickening waistline or you lobotomized yourself with a butterknife in order to avoid a lifetime of Wambsgans’ mouth breathing.” 

“He’s really trying tonight and you’re being an asshole,” she bitches.

“Technically Gerri was the asshole and you laughed your little ferret face off at her decimating him.” 

“She’s just so much smarter than you are. I don't know why she tolerates all your video games or the crayon drawings you probably call research and development.” 

“Great sex,” he deadpans and she pulls a disgusted face. “Seriously though, I didn’t even know you were capable of sexual reproduction. Assumed you’d just split in half, maybe bite Tom’s head off afterward.” 

“Fuck off. And I haven’t even told Tom yet, so kindly shut up.” He raises his eyebrows at that, probably a poor imitation of Gerri, and Shiv changes the subject to Ken and how he seems to be doing better. 

“Mind if I cut in?” Gerri asks, and both of them stop. 

“Sure,” Roman says. “You two dance your hearts out.” 

“Cute,” Shiv says. “Gerri, it’s not too late to trade him in for a better date. Maybe one that doesn’t need a booster seat.” 

Gerri doesn’t respond to the rib, just lets his sister slither away as she takes her place, Roman’s arms moving around her. 

“No grabbing my ass,” she warns him. “It isn’t that kind of event.” 

“What kind of event would that be?” he drawls. “And when can we turn up to that one?” 

“Later,” she says, giving him a meaningful smile as he spins her. 

“That car ride glow already wearing off?” 

“Yes,” she says. “But I need to raise about two hundred thousand more bucks before I can escape this very glitzy prison.” 

“I’ll write you a check for three hundred thousand right now if it means getting you naked in the next thirty minutes.” 

“Wait wait,” Shiv says, when he and Gerri are on their way out. “We didn’t get a picture together.” 

A photographer is already poised beside her, like Shiv summoned him from the mist or something, and Roman glances at Gerri here. Doesn’t really want her to have to pose for a photo bookended by Roy’s, the meat between two slices of a Nazi-baiting family conglomerate. 

“Get one with just the two of you first,” Gerri says, and he assumes she’ll just slide away during it. A smart play. 

“Spawns of Satan at the ready,” he declares, trying to give Gerri cover while she ducks away. He leans over to Shiv, whispering. “Dad’s gonna fucking hate this if he sees it. Are you sure?”

“I don’t care,” she says. “I want a picture with my least annoying brother.” 

He sees Gerri re-appear while they’re still posing, Tom being dragged behind her like a sad mutt some kennel is desperately trying to re-home, and Shiv motions them in after a few more pictures. 

“Now one with the significant others,” Shiv declares, no sign of hesitation from Gerri when she positions herself between them, Tom on the other side of Shiv, Roman’s arm around Gerri’s waist.

Gerri’s dress is a blue strapless number with lots of delicate embroidery and tulle that has to be treated just fucking so, which made loading into the car earlier a bit of a nightmare. He’s dreading dealing with it again when they leave but apparently she doesn’t care, now that they’re just going back to the hotel. 

“You look amazing,” he says. “I feel like I should take you somewhere, not waste the dress.” 

“I’m more than ready to part ways with this dress,” she says. “This God awful bra, too.” 

“Cock tease.” 

“Only a tease if I don’t make good on it.” 

She seems really and truly flattened by the time they make it up the suite, Roman helping her out of her dress and then the painful look corset contraption under it. 

“Could you even breathe in this?” he frowns. She kicked him out of the room when it was time for her to get dressed and now he sees why. This thing looks fucking medieval and not even in a fun, kinky way. 

“It was only a few hours,” she says, breathing deeply when it comes free, Roman making a disgruntled noise, throwing the under garment unceremoniously to the floor. 

She says something about making a drink as he reaches for her pajama top and Roman stops her, pulling the silk from her hand and throwing it onto the bed. 

“That wasn’t the deal,” he says. “And you already took my money.” 

“You can’t seriously expect me to prance around here naked.” 

“A deal’s a deal,” he tells her seriously. “But I will make you that drink.” 

Gerri moves around the space with no trace of apparently self-consciousness. Grabs one of his discarded jackets to sit on, throwing a dubious expression at the couch beneath her while he sets to work at making a martini, picking up things at random on the suite’s wet bar until he finds everything he needs. 

“No olives?” she asks, accepting the drink. 

“There aren’t any.” 

“No points for the lackadaisical bar service in this establishment, I’ll tell you that.” He pulls a face, falling backwards onto the couch next to her and then spreading out, his head in her bare lap. “Is this your very lazy attempt at foreplay?” 

“No foreplay yet,” he says, looking up at her as she sips her drink, her lips twitching with something like a smile. “Just getting reacquainted is all.” 

She drags her nails through his hair and he practically purrs, ducks his head into her, smells her lotion and beneath that her arousal. 

He feels her move to set her drink down and he stops her, a hand on her wrist. 

“Keep it,” he says. “Your job is not to drop it.” She makes a disgruntled noise at that but holds onto the drink while he nuzzles her with his mouth, his lips already kissing the skin he can touch. 

“What happens if I fail at my job?’ she asks, voice a little too cool to be believed as he gently bites at her thigh, one of his hands rubbing down her leg. 

“I’ll stop,” he says and he hears a sharp intake of breath at that, his mouth going back to work. 

“You win,” she says a while later, her legs trembling a little and the back of his hair damp where some of her martini sloshed over, Gerri having gritted out a curse. 

“I do?” he asks, sitting up. Already unbuttoning his shirt, her hands working at his belt. 

He knows better than to ask her to lay down on a hotel couch and the bed feels so far away when she’s already cupping him through his briefs, her mouth latched onto his. 

“Up,” he surges and then pulls her back down, into his lap. 

They’ve never done it in exactly this position before and it takes a moment to find the right angle but then she’s around him, a little gasp torn from her throat, and he buries his face in her chest. 

He holds onto her hips, stilling her when she starts to move. He’s a little worried he might come too quickly and he’s completely fucking sure he wants to savor this feeling for a moment, so he just sits there beneath her for a bit, her breasts pressing against his faces every time she breathes. 

“Rome.” 

“Is this going to hurt your hip?” 

“Fuck you and no,” she says, moving against him now, pushing him back as she slides down on him and then rocks back up. “I never should have told you that.” 

“I’ll try to care a little less,” he shoots back, touching her breasts. It occurs to him that he can probably reach her clit from here so he does, one thumb rubbing at her as she rises and falls. 

“Please,” she says later, his thumb moving in tight circles as she pauses, just barely rocking above him, obviously teetering on the edge. “I need you.” 

“You have me,” he promises. Kisses her here, his free hand pulling her head down, and then he feels her clenching around him, his hand firm on her neck, swallowing down the sound she makes. 

. . . 

They’re almost late to brunch because they have sex when they wake up and then again after her shower, Roman kissing her now in the sitting room, Gerri pinned against an end table. 

“Stop,” she tells him, pushing him away. “You don’t even have a shirt on yet.” 

Her hair air dried curly because he was busy distracting her, but she doesn’t seem worried about leaving it the way it is, which is nice but also fucking weird. He likes it curly but she never wears it that way, will get up an hour early just to straighten it out, even on a Sunday at home, no plans but errands and brunch with him. 

The gala last night was pretty anticlimactic, all things considered, but Gerri seems nervous on the ride to the restaurant, checking her phone a few times. 

“Stop it,” she orders, when he keeps playing with her hair. “You’ll make it frizz up.” 

“Something you’d like to share with the class,” he says, when they’re about to pull up. “Like maybe why you’re freaking the fuck out.” 

“These are my oldest friends,” she tells him, her body turned toward him now. “They mean a lot to me.” 

“Okay.” 

“Even if one of them says something that you find completely stupid, you can’t be an asshole.” He wishes it weren’t a necessary thing for her to say, but it kind of is, so he doesn’t bother getting upset here. Just grabs her hand and squeezes it. “I like your sense of humor,” she adds. “It matches my own, but - “

“It’s alright,” he chuckles. “I’ll turn down the dial on the part of me that’s usually set to raging cunt.”

“Thanks,” she says dryly. 

He squeezes her ass on the way out of the car, which is maybe not the best move because her friends are apparently already seated on the restaurant patio, the whole table of women watching them as Gerri pulls his hand away. 

He isn’t sure what he was expecting from women she mostly went to law school with, maybe power suits and chit chat about Supreme Court cases over martinis, but there’s a lot of floral print dresses at the table, two women hugging him hello while another talks to Gerri about a grand baby or something. He isn’t sure because it’s all a little overwhelming and he’s already wondering if it’s too early to excuse himself to go to the bathroom. 

“Sit, sit,” another one of the women says, and Roman orders a cocktail the second he sees a server. 

“We promise not to beat you up too badly,” one of the women says, smiling at him here. She looks like she could be someone’s grandmother and it’s odd to think that she and Gerri are the same age. 

“He’s a tough one,” Gerri says, patting his leg under the table. 

“He’d have to be to put up with you.” Roman barks out a laugh at that, Gerri glancing at him here. 

“Not wrong,” he says, sipping the water in front of him. “But she puts up with me, so the short straw is clearly hers to hold.” 

He doesn’t have to talk a lot of that after that and brunch is served family style, something he would absolutely make a shitty joke about if Gerri hadn’t warned him not to be an asshole. 

She’s busy talking to someone about her last case, so he spoons some fruit onto her plate, sure to avoid the grapes because they look like shit. When he goes to pass the dish to someone else, he looks up to see multiple sets of eyes staring at him. 

“Oooh bacon,” he says, ever the dipshit, a couple of the women smiling here, and he decides this might be the nicest firing squad a shithead like him could ever hope for. 

Someone named Claudia is complaining about her divorce as Roman decimates some waffles, ordering another set for the table when the server pops up. 

“Another pitcher of mimosas as well,” he says, noticing the two on the table are almost gone. If these women are anything like Gerri, it’s best to keep things lubricated. 

“It’s just going on forever,” Claudia is saying, on the far side of the table. “But God, not as bad as Gerri’s.” 

There’s an awkward beat here, a few women staring at Roman again, Gerri’s hand fidgeting on her glass, and he forces a smile. 

“You got to meet John last night, didn’t you, Roman?” He’s pretty sure the woman asking the question is named Elizabeth, and he files away a note in his brain that Gerri’s friend Elizabeth is a shit stirrer. 

“He was fine,” he shrugs. “I mean, forgettable with bad taste. But fine, I guess, if your type is short assholes with wandering dicks.” 

There’s maybe a second where he thinks the joke won’t land, the vulgarity of it too far over the line for the company assembled at the table, but his terror evaporates when everyone starts to laugh, Elizabeth winking at him as she pours herself another mimosa. 

“Since we’re on the subject of wandering dicks,” someone on the other side of the table announces. “A few of us have some questions about your alleged threesome with those Victoria Secret models.” 

“Anne,” Gerri warns, sitting up in her chair. Actually sounds pissed. 

“Was not a real thing,” Roman says, trying to smooth it over. “And Gerri knows all my secrets anyway, so if you’re trying to scandalize her, there’s no use.” 

“And do you know all of hers?” someone asks him. 

“Clearly not,” he scoffs, then turns on his most high wattage smile. “But if I’m clever and charming, I might coax them out of all of you.” 

“Do you want us to start with the skinny dipping stories, or. . . “ Gerri closes her eyes when Elizabeth says that, Roman whipping around to smirk at her. 

“Did you, or did you not tell me only two days ago that you didn’t have time for youthful indiscretions when you lived here?” He really plays it up, women laughing around the table, and Gerri opens her eyes to pull a face at him. “Ms. Kellman, you lied right to my young, adoring face.”

“She’d already moved away by then,” someone else says. He thinks her name is Peri. “Hardly youthful.” 

“Well, well,” he pronounces. “Now the truth comes out.” 

“You literally turned down a threesome to make yourself a sandwich,” she reminds him. Throws him under the bus so fast he gets fucking whiplash. “I’d be careful where you take this.” 

“Alright,” he nods, smiling a little as the woman on the other side of Gerri throws back her head, cackling away. “Elizabeth. Anne. You’re clearly the ones who like to throw down at this table. What other dirt you got for me on the woman I’m dating?” 

He gets some pretty good stories, Gerri begging everyone to stop even as she laughs. But then someone says something about sex, some of them looking at him appraisingly here, like they’ve heard some very detailed stories, and Gerri studiously avoids eye contact with him for a few minutes. 

“Well you’ll have to see John more, if you retire in DC like you’re always talking about,” Claudia says to Gerri, and Roman is very careful not to react here. 

“Assuming you even retire,” Anne says, “rather than doing that other thing.”

Gerri is obviously uncomfortable now, her hand finding his leg again under the table even as she dutifully continues avoiding all eye contact. 

“That’s all a good way off still,” Gerri says smoothly. “No decisions about anything on the immediate horizon.” 

“I could live here,” he blurts out. “Certainly part-time at the very least.” It’s the wrong thing to do, having this conversation for the first time at a table with her friends, but at least three of the women are watching him like hawks now, clearly evaluating whether he’ll stand in Gerri’s way, and he’d rather just be honest. 

“You hate the weather here,” Gerri says. Sounds closed off and unimpressed. 

“I hate summer everywhere that isn't Aspen or most of Switzerland. And not to sound like even more of a pampered asshole, but we move between climate controlled buildings by way of climate controlled cars waiting at doorsteps. Weather doesn’t matter all that much, except for my walking Al.” 

“Your work is in New York,” Gerri says, her exasperation clearly growing. Probably annoyed that he’s digging into this here, but oh well. Fuck it. 

“So is yours right now,” Roman says. “Things change and I travel for work all the time anyway. We’re not talking about picking up and going to Hong Kong. It’s like an hour of flying time.” 

“Roman,” she sighs. 

“No,” he says. “While we’re here with your nearest and dearest, I’ll just make this really fucking clear. You gave up a lot in your marriage and you don’t have to do that with me. What I want is you. So long as I get you and don’t have to give up my dog in the process, I’m happy.”

There’s a long, painful pause around the table after that, Peri breaking it by way of asking to see pictures of Albert, Roman whipping out his phone. 

“Well this was nice,” Gerri says, as Roman gets up to go to the bathroom. Hands the server his card while he’s in the building, taking care of the tab. 

When he gets back out the women all are murmuring, Gerri having lost that guarded look she’s been wearing since the topic of possible relocation came up.

“When are you two heading back?” 

“Tonight,” Gerri says. “Flight leaves at six.” 

Someone asks for the server for the check after that, Gerri grimacing when she realizes what he’s done. 

“Least I could do for letting me crash your Gerri time,” Roman says honestly. 

“Seems a shame for you to do that when you’re about to get an earful from her in the car,” Anne says, Gerri shaking her head but not denying it. “We could have at least softened the blow by paying for brunch.” 

“I can take it,” Roman smiles. “She’s right, I’m very tough. And by that I mean I’m not remotely tough.” 

More women hug him goodbye than hugged him hello, which he takes to be a good indication that he didn’t totally fuck it up. Gerri tears up a little when she says her goodbyes and he feels disoriented here. Her time with him aside, she’s made her life in New York out to be a lonely one, not that she would ever call it that, and none of this jives with that picture of her, Gerri presently holding hands with friends as they kiss her on the cheek. 

“Bye,” she says, waving as they get in the car, and Roman takes hold of her hand. 

“Clearly I’m not the only one you tell the bad shit, too.” 

“You are,” she corrects him immediately. “I leaned on them all during my divorce, but the distance is real and everyone’s so busy. I don’t speak to them nearly as much as I should.” 

“I really would move here,” he says. Because apparently he has no fucking sense. 

“What about your family?” she asks. “Keeping Kendall out of trouble. And that growing belly bump Siobhan is now sporting.”

“You noticed that, huh.” 

“If she’s keeping it she needs to start telling people. She’s a slim woman, she can’t hide it for long. My big hips probably bought me an extra four weeks with my first pregnancy.” 

“You don’t have big hips,” he frowns at that. 

“Wow,” she says. “You really are in love, aren’t you?” 

“Pretty much,” he says, leaning in to kiss her, his hand in her hair, pulling at a curl. 

“Moving isn't an easy thing for either of us,” she circles back. “And I have a law firm I’m not willing to step away from yet.” 

“And what about the Senate thing?’

“Still a no. I’m just an egomaniac who likes people continuing to ask me.” He tells her about the Shiv stuff here and she smirks at that. “She’s probably angling to run my campaign.”

“No doubt,” he agrees. Makes a farting noise. “Well, would you possibly consider taking some extra time off, maybe swinging back here more often, so the friends I just impressed continue to fucking like me?” 

“They’re already in my text messages, singing your praise,” Gerri admits. “I shouldn’t have been worried, I’m sorry.” 

“You weren’t wrong,” he reassures her. “Your warning probably saved the table three or four spectacularly offensive jokes.”

She’s confused when the car drops them off at the National Gallery again. 

“I told you it’s closed today,” Gerri frowns, following him as he tugs her by the hand along the sidewalk, Roman stopping to look around. 

“Closed to the public, yes. Now which way is the 7th Street entrance?” 

A man in a blue suit meets them at the door, shaking both of their hands. 

“Thanks for doing this,” Roman says. 

“Our pleasure, Mr. Roy. Right this way, Ms. Kellman.” Roman follows right behind the guy, easier to dodge Gerri’s stare that way. “We weren’t able to open the East Wing due to some restoration projects,” the man apologizes. 

“We’ll be fine sticking to the classics,” Roman says. “Thank you again for the consideration.” 

“I’ll be around if you have any questions,” the man says. “Please enjoy your time.” 

“What on earth did you do?” Gerri hisses, once they’re alone. 

“It was too crowded in here yesterday, sweaty tourists bumping about fucking everywhere. Now you can actually enjoy it.” 

“Saturdays are always crowded,” she says. “You didn’t have to do this.” 

“I wanted to,” he says. Sits down on the first bench he sees and pulls out his phone. “Now go enjoy your art, please.” 

He watches her for a while between checking his messages, sees her floating between rooms, crossing back and forth between the main hall and the atrium as she winds her way. But eventually he loses track of her and he places a phone call to Ben, going through a list of shit that’s happened. Apparently there’s some kind of whisper campaign picking up around Kendall, something that happened in England, at Shiv’s wedding maybe, but it’s too early to say for certain what it is. 

“I saw the photos from that thing,” Ben says. “Gerri looked really pretty.” 

“She always fucking does,” Roman says. “But eyes off the hot lady, she’s mine.” 

The Toronto stuff is apparently a mess, so he spends a while trying to sort that out, maybe pin down an actual schedule, though if they’re this flighty pre-fuck, he probably doesn’t want any part of it. 

“Whenever you’re ready,” Gerri says, appearing in front of him. 

“Already?” he asks, standing up.

“Two hours is more than enough.” She checks the time on his cell phone here, sure that she’s wrong, but nope, it’s been two hours and change. “This was incredibly thoughtful, thank you.” 

“Happily,” he says, fidgeting and looking around for their dude. They probably can’t just waltz out a door, might set off a whole series of alarms. Though that could be pretty fun, too. 

“Rome,” she says, grabbing at his shirt here. “Really. This was wonderful. Thank you.” 

The kiss she gives him is gentle, sweet, and she’s smiling when she pulls back. 

“Let’s head out,” he says, offering her his arm. “Lots of packing to do.” 

. . .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Roman is not a museum guy. Dinosaurspaceship and I apparently agree, so clearly it's true.


	15. Chapter 15

“You don’t have your suit.” 

“I do.”

“You don’t.” 

“It’s literally hanging right be-fucking-hind you.” He knows that she’s nervous and maybe freaking out, but he really feels like he’s being pecked to death right now. 

“Are you sure we can’t just leave the dog?” Gerri complains, for the millionth time, but Roman’s been gone most of this month and no, this was the deal they made. Albert is going to fucking San Francisco, come hell or high water. 

“Please drink something immediately,” he begs her. “I will handle all of the bags and get everything into the car, but please drink a martini or something before I kill myself by way of bashing my head in with this suitcase.” 

“Well there’s no reason to be rude about it,” Gerri sniffs at that, Ben turning up at Roman’s door here, obviously scared shitless by their arguing, probably debating whether to turn around and leave.

“See,” Roman says, when Ben shuffles out again with the random thing he needed, back down the hallway to the office. “You upset Ben.” 

“We can just stay home, right?” she asks him, Roman piling up bags in the hallway now. There should be eight altogether but he only sees seven and he doesn’t know where the last one went. “I’m paying for the wedding, I don’t need to be there. Claire will understand.” 

“Sure she will,” he drawls, kicking a bag into compliance with his foot. “Right after she and her sister put out a hit on me because they think I’m the reason you didn’t turn up.” He finds the missing bag on the couch, Gerri’s shawl thrown over it, and he grabs Albert’s leash when the driver sends him a text, announcing he’s on his way up. 

“I’m sorry,” Gerri says as they ride down in the elevator, Albert standing on the other side of him, smiling his idiot face off. “I’ll pull it together now, I promise.” 

“You’re allowed to throw a little temper tantrum,” he says, rubbing circles into her back, Gerri’s head resting against his shoulder. “Just remember I’m on your side, alright?” 

She makes a pathetically little noise here and he tries not to chuckle too hard at her, amused that their roles have temporarily reversed. 

Albert stretches right out on the plane, claiming a whole row for himself, and Roman immediately orders Gerri a martini. 

“Are you texting Peri?” she asks, peeking over at his phone. 

“Of course not,” he says, sliding it into his pocket, Gerri staring at him hard. “Just a little group sexting with your friends. You know, trying to cover my bases.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Well Peri has that great voice and-“

“Stop,” Gerri orders, already smirking. “Just stop, you win. Plot away with the whole lot of them, but don’t make anymore jokes like that.”

Most of Gerri’s DC friends will be at the wedding, so he has plenty of time to talk to people about her birthday. He thinks maybe something tropical, everyone invited. He’s willing to give up a little daytime action if it means Gerri will leave her hair curly, laugh with her friends while he goes parasailing or whatever. Not like they won’t still have alone time at night.

But that probably all depends on how this trip goes.

“Remember when all we did was have sex,” Roman says here, feeling wistful.

“Is that a complaint?” she asks, powering up her laptop. But she doesn’t sound angry and anyway she knows better. It’s him that left the country three times this month, still feels a bit fucked over from all the time changes.

“Never,” he says, kissing her cheek. “But I wouldn’t mind some catching up in that department.”

“Don’t get your hopes up,” she warns him. “It doesn’t pay to be the mother of the bride.”

Yeah, he figured, but he still makes a farting noise here. 

There’s no fog when they touch down in San Francisco, but apparently the clear skies make for colder temperatures and he wishes he’d kept his jacket handy when they deboard. It was freezing in New York when they left but he always expects Sam Francisco to be warmer than it is. 

They have a rental house by the marina, an eight-minute walk from the beach it’s too cold to fucking swim at, and Roman takes Al for a walk straight off, leaves Gerri alone to unpack her five million bags and apparently worry herself into a thousand pieces. 

“Dinner’s ready,” she announces when he comes back, the meal he ordered on the ride from the airport now set out on the ridiculously large dining table. 

“Smells good,” he says, Gerri opening and shutting cabinets.

“Maybe next time a smaller place, huh? I appreciate the thought but I feel a little like Leona Helmsley, rattling around in this gigantic, empty house.”

“Noted,” he says, careful not to smile too much here. “Only a shack on the beach for Ms. Kellman.”

She flicks his ear for that, both of them watching Albert sniff over every inch of floor as they eat.

“How am I so tired?” she sighs later, a fire going in the palatial sitting room. 

“It’s well after midnight in New York. And you’ve been working extra hard this week. Don’t think I didn’t notice the time stamps on those texts the other night.”

“I guess,” she says, and he stands, pulling her up by the hand. 

“Alright,” he declares. “Bedtime for tired little girls.”

“I’m fine,” she argues, no matter that she’s clearly exhausted. “It’s nice to sit by a fire with you.”

“There’s a fireplace in the bedroom,” he promises. “You can enjoy that one while you fall asleep.”

They set Al up in a corner, the dog spinning around twice before he lies down with a contented grumble, Gerri chuckling while Roman shakes his head. 

The fireplace in the bedroom is more finicky than one downstairs, Gerri telling him to leave it after he fiddles and fiddles, nothing sparking to life.

“It’s fine,” she promises while he grumps his way into bed, curling up next to her. 

Her hand snakes its way into his briefs almost immediately, and as pleased as he is with this development, he knows that she’s way too tired to start anything.

“Tomorrow,” he says, kissing her here. But they probably won’t have time tomorrow and they certainly won’t have the same level of privacy. 

“But I missed you,” she says, already sounding half asleep. “And you’re right, we need to catch up on sex. It feels like we’re in debt.”

“We’ll have time,” he promises. Kisses her again, her mouth open and relaxed beneath his, her hand on his hip.

She’s asleep a minute later, her head dead weight against his on the pillow, and he smiles to himself. Thinks this is a fine enough consolation prize for anyone.

. . .

“What on earth,” Gerri says, when her friends start streaming into the house, first thing after breakfast. 

She’s been angling for sex for the last fifteen minutes and he’s been ducking her, knew that they’d be treating her guests to a show upon their arrival.

“Hi,” Peri beams, throwing her arms around Gerri. “Our crashing at your house is your boyfriend’s doing, so blame him if you don’t like it.”

“Wow,” Roman says, hugging the others. “And she’s the fucking nice one.”

“Rude,” Anne says. 

“Rude but true,” Gerri says, still hugging people. 

There are apparently a lot of confirmation calls to make, bullshit with caterers and florists, and Roman knows better than to stay underfoot for any of that. He makes sure the house is well stocked with food and booze, then head’s out with Albert. 

“You’re leaving?” Gerri asks, when he checks in with her on the way out.

“I have nothing to contribute to these efforts. Plus you can’t talk about me if I’m here.”

“Thank you,” she says, pulling him in and kissing him, her friends all watching them now. 

“I love you,” he tells her. Because the words feel so easy now and he can’t remember why they ever felt costly, a price too high to fucking consider. 

“Love you,” she says back, kissing him again, some of the women clearly rolling their eyes now.

“Stop distracting her,” someone orders and he gives them a smart ass little salute. 

“I’m going, I’m going.” 

They do some touristy stuff, the hired car service driving him and Al around, the two of them getting out to walk whenever walking is the better option. 

_You free?_ Ken texts him, and Roman immediately calls him, his phone to his ear as they walk along the beach.

“Yo,” he says, Albert jumping back from the water when it rushes toward him, pulling on the leash.

“Yo,” Ken parrots back. “How’s the wedding stuff going?”

“Well I haven’t seen either of the daughters yet, so pretty good. But I think my luck will run out soon.”

They talk about the same bullshit they always do, Roman never bringing up the investigation in England because it makes Ken cry every time and yeah, Roman thinks being falsely accused of vehicular manslaughter will do that, no less so as the accusations lead right back to their asshole father’s hired goons. 

“Did Tom move out of Shiv’s place?” Ken asks, and Roman doesn’t want to lie but there are secrets of Shiv’s she’s keen to protect and he won't run afoul of that. Not when it’s taken so long for Shiv to trust him in the first place. 

“I don’t know,” he says, trying to sound casual. “She mentioned him the other day, so I don’t think so?”

“Weird,” Ken says. “They’re so fucking weird.”

“Aren’t we all?” Roman asks, pitching his voice for effect, and Ken changes the subject right after that. 

“Thanks for that thing,” Ken says, clearing his throat. “The one your team ran last week.”

“Sure,” he says. Tries to sound bored here, even though that press release caused a pretty nasty argument with Gerri, the two of them fighting for an hour on the phone about Ken and how she thinks Roman should stay out of it, let the investigation clear him without outside interference with the press.

“You weren’t there,” she’d said, pleading with him to be careful, not hurt himself for Ken’s benefit. “I know you love your brother but he has demons and you weren’t there, Rome.”

He’d forgiven her that much because he knows what Kendall looks like on paper and even close up, but there’s no way Ken let some waiter kid drown and then forgot to tell him about it for like two years. He knows every shitty, horrible thing his brother’s ever done and Ken’s not a killer. Not even close. 

This shit is just an ungodly lie spewed by their father. 

“Really,” Ken says now, voice cracking. “I don’t know what I’d have done with you this last year.”

“Probably marry Naomi and have a million little crack babies.”

“Fuck you,” Ken says, his voice shaky even as he laughs. “Those daughters are gonna fucking hate you.” 

“No doubt,” Roman agrees. 

Both of the girls are at the house when he gets back, Gerri having already lost that smile she wore earlier, her shoulders halfway up to her ears as she walks around.

“So there’s the man that goes with all the tabloid photos,” the older one draws. 

Emily. Claire and Emily. He’s been practicing their names in his head, doesn’t want to get them reversed, but now he’s probably psyching himself out. Pulling a fucking Kendall.

“I do photograph well,” he smiles, hoping he looks charming rather than creepy. “I know the in-person experience is a let down.”

“Undoubtedly,” Emily says, her sister glancing at Gerri while one of the women hands him a desperately needed glass of wine, Gerri puttering in the kitchen, clearly keeping herself out of the line of fire.

“Thanks for all the alcohol, Roman” Anne says. “And the food.”

“I’m reliably good at those two things,” he replies. “It’s how I tricked Gerri into liking me in the first place.”

“I always liked you,” Gerri chimes in from the kitchen.

“Now I believe that’s what a legal expert would call, uh, a fucking lie.” He waggles his eyebrows at Peri for effect. 

“Mom didn’t like you at first?” Emily asks, Claire watching his reaction.

“If by ‘didn’t like’, you mean actively tried to block the purchase of my apartment and then glowered at me in the hallway for months, until I picked up the keys that she dropped. . . then yes.”

“You didn’t tell us that,” Peri says and Gerri blushes a little. 

“He was pretty charming after that. I felt bad for misjudging him,” Gerri admits, coming out of the kitchen to stand beside him. 

“So this whole relationship is based on misplaced guilt, apparently, and once she acquits herself of it she’ll just up and fucking dump me.”

“That’s not funny,” Gerri says, both of her daughters watching her now. That same steady gaze Gerri always directs at him, directed at her. “Rome, that’s not funny.”

The conversation moves on, everyone talks about the wedding and the venue how fucking great the weather’s supposed to be, which makes no sense because the whole thing is indoors, so why does that even matter. 

He’s been trying to be respectful in front of her kids, not touch her as much as he wants, but Gerri slips her hand into his at some point, her thumb running back and forth, back and forth, the whole time everyone’s talking around him, Albert asleep under a table. 

“Alright,” Claire announces. “Rehearsal dinner in three hours. No one be late.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Gerri replies with a dutiful smile. Accepts a kiss on the cheek as Emily and Claire leave, no parting words thrown Roman’s way. Which is fine, certainly not the worst outcome. 

“I feel like I got off lightly,” Roman says later, stripping down for his shower, the hallway outside their bedroom noisy with closing doors and people talking, an occasional excited bark from Albert. 

“We both did,” Gerri replies. “But there’s a full weekend to get through yet.”

He tries to hurry because she hasn’t showered yet and her hair takes forever, all of the other bathrooms no doubt in use.

“All yours,” he announces. Stands wrapped in a towel at the mirror, staring at his hair with a frown because it kind of needs a cut. 

“Shower with me,” Gerri says, and he laughs at that, shakes his head.

“We don’t have time for that. No way am I falling for that trap.”

“No trap,” she purrs, dropping his towel to the floor. “Just a little multitasking.”

“You cheat,” he says because he’s already half hard now, his erection poking her in the stomach, her robe chafing against him. 

The fastest way is for him to be behind her and it feels amazing, feels like coming home, but he wishes he could see her face. 

“You owe me hours of this,” he says, rubbing at her clit as he slides into her, his other hand on her breast. “I waited too many days to be satisfied with a bathroom quickie when what I want is my head between your legs. Fuck you until my tongue goes numb.”

She groans at that, pushing back against him, and he bites her shoulder, feels the moment she comes apart and then goes limp in her arms, Roman right on her heels.

“Don’t forget to wash all your nooks and crannies,” he says, goosing her on his way out of the shower. 

He meanders out of the bedroom once he’s dressed, doesn’t trust himself to not maul herif he sticks around, watches her get ready. 

Two of the women throw him passing smirks and he ducks his head, feels his face go hot as he takes the stairs two a time, a small gaggle of husbands assembled on the terrace outside, Albert warily watching a couple of guys stoop down to pet him. 

Apparently they were all out drinking or golfing most of the day and Roman is not at all sad to have missed that shit.

“Does he hunt?” one idiot asks him about Al, lighting up a fucking cigar of all things.

“Not a lot of hunting in New York,” he replies, not trying to sound especially pleasant here because he’s heard half of Gerri’s friends bitch about their husbands and yeah, he can fucking see why. 

“What’s the haps?” he asks, plopping down in the sitting room with some of the women. Anne is having trouble with her bracelet and he helps her with it, listens to the others talk shit about Gerri’s ex-husband and Claudia’s divorce and someone they all know who apparently left her husband for a woman in her office. “Good for her,” he says absently, Albert beside him now, begging everyone for pets.

“You think?” Peri asks him. 

“Well men are pretty fucking useless, so a chick’s gotta be an upgrade, right?” 

He goes back up the stairs after that because maybe Gerri needs his help and sure enough, right when he walks in, she’s bending her arm at a weird angle, trying to zip up her dress. 

“Thank fucking God."

“Need a little help there?”

“Please.”

Her dress is black and tight, a little shorter than the hemlines she usually favors, and she’s wearing the earrings he got her last month from that one shop in Berlin.

“I’ve never seen that necklace,” he says, zipping her up in one quick motion. 

“Claire got it for me as a birthday present. Money from her first real job.” He smiles at that. Spins her around, checking to see if her lipstick’s already on before he leans in and kisses her. 

“Those husbands are a bunch of blowhards,” he says, pulling away. 

“Peri’s husband is the worst. He’s the balding neurotic one who, laughably enough, happens to be a therapist. But never repeat that I said that.”

“Well that’s bullshit,” he pulls a face. “She’s great. Deserves a lot better than some pedantic asshole.”

“Maybe I need to start reading your texts with her,” Gerri smirks, reaching for her lipstick. “Make sure I don’t have anything to worry about after all.”

He kisses her again, an uncapped lipstick in her hand as he pulls her closer, his hand at the dip of her back, holding her in place.

“I only want you,” he promises, forehead still pressed to hers.

“I was kidding,” she chuckles. Sobers a little, staring at him now. “Rome, I know.”

He knows she knows, but there are all of those funny, smart women downstairs and then right outside are a pack of puttering assholes who don’t deserve them, and Gerri clearly dated men like that, was married to one too, and he kisses her again now, one hand on her neck now. Kisses her and kisses her until someone’s knocking repeatedly on the door.

“Cars are here,” Peri calls. “Please stop doing whatever it is you’re doing in there.”

From the way people spread out, it looks like men are going in two cars and the women are going in the others, but Roman locks his hand in Gerri’s and gives her a look, not budging from her side unless someone puts a gun to his head.

“It’s okay, Roman,” one of the women says. “There’s room enough with us.”

The rehearsal dinner is at the St. Regis and he’s confused now because he thought the wedding was at the St. Regis, but he probably just didn’t pay enough attention, was pretty much zoned out when anyone talked about the wedding itself. 

Seating is pre-assigned, which sucks because if it weren’t he could just get through it cocooned by people he already knows and likes. But instead he’s stuck staring across a table at Gerri’s fucking ex-husband, her daughters and their dudes on either side, so it’s not like he can even glare at the guy. 

Conversation is awkward and stilted. Someone says something about how they love December weddings, everything already decorated in the run up to Christmas, and Claire smiles at him here, a pointed one she absolutely learned from Gerri. Holds his gaze as she says, “Just gotta buy the spring of mistletoe to shove up my ass.”

He’d really hoped she’d forgotten all about that, but of course she didn’t, just squirreled it away, biding her time, and Roman nods at her slightly. Impressed and embarrassed, absolutely willing to take that one on the chin, Gerri watching the two of them carefully. 

Dinner is mostly boring after that, but then Gerri’s asshole of an ex gets people talking about Waystar and the need for antitrust legislation, and all eyes shift to Roman. 

“No disagreement on this side of the table,” Roman says. 

“Forgive me for being surprised by that,” John says dramatically, and Roman can see why the guy never lasted in a courtroom, tucked tail and ran toward academia. No one beyond a scared, twenty-three-year-old kid would find this guy fucking impressive, not in comparison to Gerri, with all her elegance and restraint. “Would you really be willing to give up your sizable fortune if that was the cost of meaningful change in this country?”

“Well,” Roman says, replying before Gerri can jump in, maybe try to save him. “My family’s been torn apart by my father’s greed and it took me like four decades to figure out my ass from my elbow. Learn to recognize decency.” He holds Gerri’s hand here, feels her watching him, supporting him, no matter that her kids are staring at him now. “So would I give up all my money to fix that? Sure, why the fuck not.” He shrugs, sipping his wine. “But I guess that makes for a boring answer. Not the kind of shit that sells tabloids.”

Dinner moves on after that, the whole table cooling to John, Gerri refraining from looking across the table the rest of the meal, probably doesn’t trust herself to look her ex’s way without biting his face off.

He expects Gerri to hang out with her friends once they’re back at the house, catch up on the things she’s missed, but she only chats downstairs for a little while, finding him in an office with Albert afterward, Al snoring away while Roman sifts through a bunch of shit Ben’s sent him.

“Let’s go,” she says, pulling him up by the hand. 

There’s a back staircase he hasn’t bothered to use before now and Gerri marches him up it, kissing him at the top, her hands already wandering.

“Someone will see us,” he warns, laughing a little as Gerri kisses his neck again, yanking him forward by his suit jacket. “Is this because I made your ex-husband look bad?”

“No,” she says, slamming the bedroom door closed behind them. “It’s because you’re nice to my friends. Realize their husbands don’t deserve them.” He unzips her dress and she works at his tie, both of them kicking off their shoes. “And because you kiss me like you’ve never kissed me before. Every time. Every fucking time.”

He kisses her now, her hands working at his belt and then his pants, her bra off a moment later and then she’s shoving him toward the bed, impatiently waiting for him to kick off his briefs. 

He swears when she sucks him into her mouth, doesn’t care that everyone in the house can probably hear them because it’s been weeks since he’s had this and her mouth is so good, so fucking perfect. 

“Wait wait,” he says, pushing her back up, and he can tell she’s about to bitch at him until he repositions her. Spins her around and pulls her down by her ass, Gerri gasping when his tongue makes contact with her clit. 

He can fuck her with both his tongue and his fingers from this angle, and for a minute she just hovers above him, gasping and stuttering, her motionless hand wrapped about his dick.

“Jesus,” she grounds out as he sucks half her cunt in his mouth, her lips back on his dick a minute later. 

He can’t last like this, there’s no way, but he keeps licking and sucking at her as he comes, his hips shooting up of their own volition, Gerri swallowing him right down, and pretty soon she’s making that noise that sounds like she’s crying, a hiccuped sob of pleasure he rarely ever hears but would give up everything he owns to have her make all goddamn day. 

“Oh,” she says, halfway rearing up, two of his fingers inside her as he sucks her whole clit in his mouth, her muscles clenching around him. And then he’s flipping her over onto the bed, climbing on top of her and kissing her mouth, that noise of surprise she makes against him when she spreads her legs and he fits his pelvis against her in just the right way.

He isn’t hard, won’t be for a while after coming like that a second ago, but he knows from experience that all she needs is his pelvic bone in the right place. Slides against her now, her hands on his ass, her eyes glazed over, looking up at him as he moves above her.

“No one else for the rest of our fucking lives,” he grunts, pushing against her as her nails dig into his ass. “Promise me.”

“Yes,” she gasps. “Oh. _Yes._ ”

“Promise,” he repeats again and again, until it hardly feels like a word anymore, Gerri’s face slack with pleasure and her eyes so fucking blue when her mouth shoots open, a soundless scream as her body goes rigid beneath him. 

“We keep getting better at that,” she says later, when she’s recovered. Says it like she’s fascinated and this is just some elaborate science experiment, is writing down notes about their orgasms on a clipboard as she squints over her glasses. 

“Any better and one of us is going to break something,” he manages, still tuckered out, his arm draped over her hip.

They don’t talk about what he said during sex, the promise she handed him, before they curl up and go to sleep. But it’s there, nestled in his chest now, and when he wakes up to face the day and the noisy house full of people, it’s still there, beating away beneath his skin.

. . .


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A brief note to say that it's the community around this fandom that's made this all such a delight. Everyone on twitter and tumblr, the dear people who leave me long and thoughtful comments no matter their schedules, and also the people who silently lurk - greedily reading the way I did for years before I ever started writing - you're all just the best and you'll stay in my heart. 
> 
> \- CDS

“Do we think they’re serious?” Roman asks, spinning a plastic toy around his finger. 

“I can’t tell,” Ben says. Pushes back in his chair to look at the doorway here, someone else apparently lurking outside his office, likely waiting for Roman’s attention.

“Numbers are in,” Gwen tells them when Roman glances up at her. 

“Send them to my phone,” Roman says. “I’ve gotta leave in a minute to pick up Gerri.” 

“Have fun,” Gwen says, already typing away on her phone, no doubt filling up his inbox with shit he’ll have to sift through later. “You look nice.” 

“Nice except for that tie,” Ben says. “That color is horrible on you.” 

“Uh, thanks, you fucking dickhead. This tie was a gift.” 

“Gerri would never buy something that ugly,” Gwen shakes her head, still looking at her phone.

“You just said I look nice."

“Nice except for the tie,” she modifies. “He's right. The tie is bad on you.” 

“Kendall gave it to me,” Roman grouses, already rethinking it.

“That explains it,” Ben smirks. 

“It does indeed explain it,” Gwen agrees.

“You’re both assholes,” Roman says, his fingers working at unknotting the tie as he stands up, starts heading toward the door. “Good work on the Singapore shit.” 

Traffic between his office and Gerri’s isn’t as bad as it could be, but he still misses the days of working out of their apartment building, Ben typing away on a laptop while he paced the floor, bouncing his little balls around, sometimes missing a catch and knocking shit over. 

This makes for a better balance, more separation of work and home, and he actually likes the three-person team he’s assembled since those days, but for some reason he’s feeling weirdly nostalgic, a little off center. Probably a belated holiday hangover; that weird liminal headspace when New Year’s is over but no one’s settled back into non-holiday life. 

_On my way,_ he texts Gerri and she doesn’t respond, probably still huddled up with her staff. The case she’s been working on for a year is ending in settlement and he knows she’ll be in a shitty mood for the next week, might even bring up retirement again like she did last time, after that case with those three masseuses and the Republican Senator from one of the Carolina's. He can never remember which of the Carolina's it was, but it doesn’t matter - Mason Dixon bullshit and one more closeted politician. He’s relieved as fuck Gerri finally told the DNC to shove off last year, no one sniffing around about a run for Senate anymore.

The security guard in the lobby of Gerri’s building hands him a pass immediately, doesn’t wait to see Roman’s ID, and he gives her a nod of thanks as he takes it, stepping around the small line of the people waiting at the desk. 

“Yo,” he says to the receptionist seated at the front. He thinks her name is Rujuta but he isn’t positive, doesn’t want to get it wrong. 

“Hi,” she says back. Smiles at him in a way that says she’s probably had a long fucking day. 

“How bad?” he asks the group of assistants stationed right outside Gerri’s office. None of them say anything but the one Roman knows best scratches his temple, shaking his head and yeah, that’s what Roman figured. 

“We need to wrap up,” Gerri announces when she spots him hovering outside her door. “But I want that draft on my desk in two hours. Please let it be a better reflection of the competency of this office.” 

Roman tries not to give her staff a sympathetic look as they file out, knows it’ll only make things worse, piss Gerri off, but he can tell they’re all relieved for the interruption, nodding at him on their way out. 

“I’m behind,” she says. “Still need to get dressed.” 

“You can always go in that,” he shrugs. “You look fine.” 

“What every woman wants to be told,” Gerri drawls. "That she looks fine.” 

He lets that comment pass, loitering in her office while she goes into the bathroom to change. He’s sitting cross legged on the floor, going over the numbers that Gwen sent him, when Gerri calls for him. 

“Need a little assistance?” he smirks, coming into the bathroom. 

“Make yourself useful,” she says, but there’s a lilt to her voice now, her mind obviously switching over from thoughts about work, and he seizes the advantage. Presses a kiss to her spine, her dress still hanging open, her skin ripe to be touched. “We’re already running late,” she warns him softly. 

“Handel doesn’t deserve our timeliness,” he replies and then kisses the back of her neck, his hands coming to rest on her hips. 

“Rome, you can’t just fuck me out of this mood.” 

“Not trying to fuck you out of anything," he promises. "I’m touching my most favorite person in a room adjacent to her office, where she busily does all sorts of important things. Slaving away, making bad men pay for their dastardly deeds.” 

She isn’t impressed with the shtick, he can see her roll her eyes in the mirror, but her bra snaps in the back and it’s easy to unhook, replace the satin with his fingers while he presses his hardening dick against her.

“I’m getting too old for this,” she sighs, and now it’s Roman’s turn to roll his eyes. 

“Oh yeah?” he says. “Want me to stop?” She shakes her head slowly, lets him push the dress off her shoulders, red silk pooling around her bare feet. “You have to be quiet, all those people a room away. Wouldn’t want them to hear the stone cold killer bitch having a quickie in her executive bathroom.” 

She moans softly at that, her head falling back against his chest while he cups her over her panties. Penetration has gotten a little tricky lately and he doubts she’s wet enough for that yet, but it’s easy enough to rub her over over her panties and then under them, one finger slowly circling her clit as she rocks in his hand. 

“Quiet,” he warns her again when she groans. Nips the side of her neck when she starts making that soft sound in her throat. “I promise to make it good, but you have to stay quiet. Hmm?”

Her hips move in time with his hand, her ass grinding against his erection, and he muffles his own groan against her skin, open mouthed kisses that are mostly tongue and teeth, trailing along her shoulder and then up, along the side of her throat. 

“Inside me,” she whispers. “Just - just one finger.” 

“Good?” he asks as he slowly pushes his middle finger in, feels her immediately squeezing around him. 

“Uh huh,” she breathes out, no trace of comfort as she rocks against him, begins to grind her ass more deliberately into his dick. 

It isn’t enough to get him off and more of this will probably leave his skin chafed, but he doesn’t care because he has one finger inside her and his mouth on her skin, one arm wrapped around her, balancing her while she begins to outright fuck his hand. 

“Please,” he says and it sounds like a whimper, like he’s the one being fucked. “Gerri, please.” 

“Oh,” she gasps. “Right there. Please. Please, right there.” 

She sags against him, dead weight after she comes, Roman making a contented humming sound in her ear as he holds her up. 

“We’re officially late,” he says, reluctantly releasing her when she rocks her weight forward, back onto her own two feet. 

“Sorry,” she says. Doesn’t at all sound it.

“I’m not,” he chuckles. Smacks her on the ass, earning a surprised squeak. 

No one seems to be the wiser when they leave her office, cutting a path to the elevator, but maybe they all know and just have stellar poker faces, a necessity of working for Gerri. 

They’re only twenty minutes late and their driver has booze waiting for them in the car, the two of them sharing a scotch as they wind through traffic, both of them checking their phones for updates from their teams. 

“Peri says the gardener did a poor job of hacking back that oak tree in the front,” Gerri announces, frowning at her phone. 

“I saw that text,” he sighs, still scrolling through messages. “You want me to call tomorrow or wait, deal with it when we go next weekend?” 

“Call," she says. “We’ll already waste enough time dealing with that gaffe with the kitchen tile.”

“Yeah,” he winces. Looks forward to next month, the DC house renovation no longer sucking up hours of their week. “I’ll make that call too.”

“No,” she says. “I’ll do it. You’re always too nice to them. It’s how we ended up with a contractor that went over budget and two weeks beyond schedule.” 

“Excuse me,” he says, only the littlest bit annoyed. “We ended up with the current asshole because the last one quit over your calling him a careless idiot.” 

“I never said ‘idiot’,” Gerri snipes back. “Only careless.” 

“My mistake,” Roman says. Feels grateful when the car pulls up to Lincoln Center. 

It’s the third performance of the season and he should be more excited, but he’s tired from the day and worried about the house shit now, maybe wishes they would have skipped going tonight, just gotten some dinner and then headed home. 

“You alright?” she asks at intermission. 

“Tired,” he admits. “We need a vacation. A real one.” 

“If I retire this year we can take a long one. Maybe Italy again but longer this time. Rent a house on the lake.” He doesn’t say anything to this. Knows better than to go down this road when her mood is only so-so and neither of them have had anything to eat.

He feels better after the second half of the performance, the joy of some Beethoven propping him up, the promise of food only a few minutes away. 

“I thought you didn’t like this place,” she says when they pull up.

“I like it fine,” he says. It’s not his favorite by a long shot but she likes it and the service is good, and they have that pasta thing with all the cheese.

Shiv calls him during dinner but he doesn’t pick up, just switches his phone to silent. If it’s important she’ll leave a voicemail but she probably just wants to talk to Gerri, enlist her help in pinning someone down in DC, and he has no desire to facilitate that tonight. Maybe tomorrow but not now, when they’re both tired and finally enjoying a nice dinner out together, Gerri smiling at him as they talk about something that Ben said and then whether Claire’s baby will be here before Gerri’s birthday. 

“Maybe the kid will share a birthday with Grandma Gerri,” he says, topping off her wine, and the glare she gives him in response to that noun is enough to make him laugh, spilling wine on the table, a server rushing over to help them. 

“Claire has some questions about what you’d like to be called,” Gerri says after the server fucks off. 

“Is the title ‘master of the universe’ not available?”

“I’m being serious,” she tsks. 

“I know,” he allows. They aren’t married, they don’t even technically live together except the house in DC, but even if they wanted to change any of that, this part would still be awkward, hard to navigate no matter six years of being glued to each other’s side. “And until the kid’s old enough to call me ‘asshole’ or ‘dipshit’, I think my name will do fine. But thank Claire for asking, alright?”

It’s freezing when they get out of the restaurant, the wind picking up, but the Christmas lights are still up on the street and Roman feels better as they climb into the car, Gerri shoving her cold hands under his legs to warm them.

“I suppose you’re owed your due now,” she says before she kisses him, her lips cold against his. 

“You smell good,” he says when she pulls back. He knows it’s the perfume he got her for Christmas and even though it’s the same one she’s worn for years, it feels different now because he bought it. One more way of claiming her. 

“Let’s go on vacation,” she says wistfully. “I don’t care where. You pick.”

“Dangerous words,” he says, kissing her again. Is just thinking about bringing up that whole retirement thing when her phone starts to ring.

“Your sister,” she sighs. 

“Don’t answer,” Roman says. Starts kissing down her neck, but she already has the phone to her ear. 

“Hi, Shiv,” Gerri says smoothly, his hand moving to graze over a breast. “Yes. Yes, okay, he’s right here.”

The way Gerri’s voice shifts with the last sentence, he knows something’s wrong. Probably Kendall again, which is shitty because this’ll be the second time in a month. 

“What’s up?” he says into the phone, Shiv barely able to talk through her sobs, and he can’t remember the last time he heard her cry like this. Maybe that time when she was fourteen and they were playing tennis, him accidentally smashing the ball in her face. All that blood from her nose that he didn’t know how to stop because he was just an idiot kid, a feckless little boy no matter that he was in college, no one having ever taught him how to be useful to someone else. “Okay,” he says as he listens. “Okay. Let me make a couple of calls and we’ll call you right back.”

“What’s wrong?” Gerri asks when he ends the call and then hands back her phone. “Do we need to go get Kendall?”

“No,” he says. Scratches his head. “Well, maybe.”

“Rome?” she asks, obviously worried now, and he doesn't know what to say because the words seem wrong, still untrue, like the new year he keeps typing out after he catches himself starting to write the old one. “Roman, what is it?”

He lets out a painful breath.

“My dad is dead.”

. . . 

The plane is apparently going to be late taking off because of the snow. The first serious storm of the year and it swept in the day after his dad died.

“Another half an hour to de-ice the plane,” Gerri says before they board the jet. “Shiv says Ken’s already onboard.”

Well, that’s one problem down. 

“Okay,” he grunts, picking up Albert, Al shifting awkwardly in his arms. He’s sure the jet bridge is slick and he doesn’t want to take any chances with Al’s hips, the dysplasia worse in cold weather, his joints a little stiffer and his movements more labored.

“Careful,” Gerri says, already fussing behind him. Probably knows this is killing his lower back.

For fuck’s sake, all three of them are falling apart. 

“Hi,” Shiv says inside the jet. 

“Hi,” he sighs and hugs her, arms wrapping around her and pressing her close. He sees Tom hovering beside them and Roman hugs him too, a bone tossed to his sister for being the one to wrangle their brother today. “How bad is he?” He nods his chin to the back corner, where Ken’s sitting with headphones and sunglasses on.

“Could be worse,” Shiv shrugs. “Not as bad as Rava’s wedding.”

“Okay,” Roman says. “Well, all fuck-knuckles present and accounted for.”

He checks in with Rava via text because he put her and the kids on a different jet, didn’t want them to have to be around Ken while he’s a mess. Her new husband isn’t coming, which is probably better for everyone, but that doesn’t mean Roman feels good about it. Not like it’s Rava’s fault Kendall can’t keep his shit together. 

Gerri’s saying her hello’s while he’s on his phone, head bent, typing out messages. When he finishes, looking up again, Gerri’s hugging Shiv and Shiv’s crying again, her head craned down, tucked into Gerri’s neck as her back shakes, Gerri’s hand rubbing little circles there.

It all makes him want to throw up but there’s no out, only a through, so he does the thing he wants to do least. Goes over and talks to his brother. 

“Hey,” he says, which is lame, but Ken hasn’t returned any of his calls since he and Gerri fished him out of that warehouse party in New Jersey three weeks ago and honestly, it feels so hard to keep trying. 

“Hey, hey,” Ken says, and just from the sound of his voice, Roman can tell he’s coming down from a bad high, probably not coke. “Apparently the only person he asked to see before he died was Uncle Ewan.”

“Better than Connor,” Roman says. Realizes here that Connor will undoubtedly be in Scotland and that feels weird, like he forgot for a while that their half brother even existed. “You good?”

“Amazing,” Ken pronounces. “The father I haven’t spoken to in years is finally dead and my brother put my wife and kids on another plane.”

“Ex-wife,” Roman says, already standing up. “She’s married to someone else now. Which I’d think you would remember, since you went on a two-week bender after her fucking wedding.”

“Bad?” Gerri asks when he sits down beside her, Albert strapped into the seat across from them and glowering now, pissed as usual about being shoved into that ridiculous safety harness. 

“Not good,” he says. Slumps over a little, leaning against her shoulder until she readjusts, tucking a blanket around them both, her hand on his leg.

“Why don’t you sleep,” she says. “You didn’t sleep at all last night.”

“Maybe later,” he says. But he tucks his head against hers and watches as Shiv does the same with Tom at the front of the cabin, things feeling just the tiniest bit less awful after that.

He falls asleep halfway to Scotland, the steady sound of Gerri typing away on her laptop lulling him into unconsciousness because it’s the sound he falls asleep to most nights of the week. 

He wakes up alone, stretched out across the whole row, a pillow jammed under his neck. Looks over to see Albert passed out hard, the tip of his tongue poking out, a puddle of drool darkening the seat fabric. 

He sits up and looks around for Gerri, wonders if she’s in the bathroom or just moved over to get more space. Half expects to find her behind him, martini in hand while she works, still slaving away on her laptop. 

She doesn’t see her immediately, not until he stands up to stretch his aching back, spots her in the corner with Ken, his brother doubled over, his head in Gerri’s lap while she rubs circles into his shoulder. Those same tiny, circular motions she made with Shiv, duplicated as Kendall lies there, obviously crying behind his sunglasses, and when Gerri looks up, meets Roman’s gaze, she gives him a small, sad smile. Like she thinks she’s supposed to offer him something more here even though she’s already given him so much, his chest spasming with pain because he wonders what his life would have been like if there’d been a single person around in the old days who was even half as decent and loving as her. 

It’s pissing freezing rain when they touch down because it’s January in Scotland, and Gerri insists one of the flight staff carry Albert this time, but no, absolutely not. No one’s carrying his fucking dog but him. 

“But it’s so manly,” he says, trying to make a lame joke out of it. “Look, my very masculine display is giving Tom a boner as we speak.”

He hears both Shiv and Gerri snort at that, Tom already whining, but soon enough they’re in separate cars, hurtling toward the family estate on a dark Scottish road.

“Did you need me to make any calls?” Gerri asks him.

“Uncle Ewan handled everything,” he replies. “I don’t even know where the service is.” He pauses, taking a minute to think over his next words. “You can sit out the service, you know. I won’t be upset.”

“Roman, honestly.”

“No,” he says, taking her hand. “It’s okay if you don’t want to be photographed at Logan Roy’s funeral. Like, who fucking knows what’s going to come out now that he’s dead? Probably a million NDA’s just waiting to domino.”

“I’m sitting beside you at your father’s funeral,” she replies. “This isn’t up for discussion.” 

He feels better for offering her the out, letting her decline it rather than just plowing forward, but she seems put off now and he doesn’t want that either. 

“I love you,” he says. Holds her hand a little tighter.

“I love you too. Even if you are an idiot who thinks I’d skip this funeral to what, stay in? Paint my nails?”

“Or masturbate,” he says, no matter that there’s no privacy partition between them and the driver, her elbow immediately jutting out to catch him in the ribs. “You know, flick the old bean. Maybe light a few candles. Make a fucking day of it.”

“You’re a child,” she says, but he can feel her smiling even in the dark. Doesn’t let go of her hand. 

It’s early in New York and some kind of family dinner is being set up in the formal dining room, but he leads Gerri up the stairs, Albert slowly following behind them as Roman steers them toward a suite of rooms that sit off by themselves.

“Gotta claim your real estate fast in this family.”

“Nice library,” she says as she walks behind him, a bag in each of his hands. He’ll have someone bring the rest up later but they have what they need for now and he just wants to be alone for as long as they can manage it.

“We might inherit it,” he tells her. “Once upon a time, I was penciled in to get this place. But who knows what dad’s will looks like now.”

“Are you worried about that?” she asks him. She zooms in on a wet bar that sits in the corner of the room, shuffling over, opening and closing crystal decanters, sniffing at liquids of various origin until she finds something she finds acceptable. 

“You mean worried I’ll end up broke?” he teases, a ridiculous question because he sold his Waystar shares two years ago. A brief market rally and a desire to finally cut ties and then poof, all those unrealized gains materializing in his accounts overnight. 

“Right,” she drawls. “Probably a good time to tell you I’ve only ever been in it for the money.” He smirks briefly at that.

“I’m not worried,” he says, circling back to being serious as she sits beside him, puts her feet in his lap. “It’s entirely possible he cut us all out or gave everything to Connor, but it doesn’t matter. Feels like blood money anyway.”

“We should go down,” she says a few minutes later. “Join everyone for dinner.”

“In a minute,” he promises. “Let’s just enjoy the quiet first. You’ve yet to sit through a full Roy family circus.”

Shiv’s already texted him that Marcia’s buzzing around, his mother too, and he knows it’s just pointless jockeying over a will that’s already been written by a man who’s already dead, but it still feels so familiar and nerve wracking and he doesn’t want to face it. Not yet.

“I don’t have to be nice to Connor, do I?” she asks, and he almost chokes on the whiskey he’s just sipped. Hands her the glass back.

“No,” he says. “On behalf of all of us, I promise you. Fuck no _._ ”

She nods. Winks at him over the glass.

. . .

Dinner is horrible, his mother and Marcia locked in some silent war he can’t make heads or tails of, Connor talking too much and then Greg talking too much, Gerri sighing into her wine glass when his mother makes predictable comments about how long it’s been since she’s seen him, then starts in on Gerri. 

“You’re looking quite rested these days,” Caroline pronounces. “Nimble and spry after that hip surgery that felled you last year.” 

“Well your son did a number on the last hip,” Gerri announces, Roman freezing in his chair. “We’ll see if this new one holds up to the abuse.”

He sees Connor go slack jawed and Tom spit his soup out - spits it right back into his bowl like some kind of fucking Charlie Chaplin reject - and after that the conversation shifts abruptly away from them, Shiv smiling serenely at Gerri over the table. 

“No wonder Kendall can’t keep his nose clean,” Gerri grouses later, and Roman giggles here, no matter that tomorrow is his father’s funeral and the weather is miserable and the morning will no doubt be infinitely worse. “With a mother like that, who could possibly stay sober?”

He sleeps like shit again but it’s nice to hear the crackle of a fireplace and Al snoring away, curled up at the foot of the bed, his head on Roman’s foot. 

“Do you want to take something?” Gerri asks when his movement wakes her up, but he doesn’t. Just wants to push on through until he can’t anymore.

“No,” he says. “Got all I need.” 

She curls back into him with that, asleep again a minute later, and he listens to the sound of her breathing and Albert snuffling. Feels the lurking sense of dread that he’s been trying to keep at bay because it feels like everyone’s ahead of him in some sort of race, poised to leave him all alone while he’s still stuck, circling an empty track. 

Shiv starts crying at breakfast and doesn’t stop the whole morning, silent tears continuously pouring out of her, and Roman doesn’t know what to do or how to help because he hasn’t cried at all, not once, and he knows that he won’t. Feels like he doesn’t have any grieving left in him since the aborted dinner with his father two years ago, Roman storming out before the salads because Logan would never be anything but a selfish, spiteful monster of a fucking human and he was wrong to allow himself even the smallest measure of hope.

“Peri wanted to come for the funeral but I told her not to,” Gerri says when she’s helping him with his tie. “Maybe I should have asked you.”

“It was the right call,” he assures her. “This’ll mostly be a Waystar commemorative circle jerk. The family shit is only for decoration.”

Frank’s at the funeral, which is odd, a little surreal, and he looks older, worse for wear, and Roman gets mad at himself here because he didn’t even go by the hospital when Frank had that health scare last year. Just sent bullshit flowers because Gerri was still recovering from her surgery and shit was crazy at work. 

He should call him when they all get back, maybe take him out for lunch.

“Did you see Frank?” Ken asks when he sits down beside them in the church. 

He looks better this morning, like he didn’t crawl out of a dumpster full of pills, but Roman knows better than to get his hopes up. There was maybe a good two years of Ken keeping his shit together, but everything after that stuff in England has been rocky, Ken bouncing from junky girlfriend to junky girlfriend, Roman bailing him out again and again. 

“I did,” Roman says. 

“When did everyone get so old?” Kendall asks, still looking around, and Roman doesn’t want to think about it. Just keeps looking forward, holding Gerri’s hand.

The service is all bullshit, the only one who doesn’t lie through his teeth is Uncle Ewan and that speech is fucking brief. 

They do the reading of the will right there in the church, all of the other guests ushered out, and there’s a brief scuffle over whether Gerri should be allowed to stay. 

“She isn’t family,” Connor says, and if Roman were any closer he would absolutely take a swing at him. 

“Shut your fucking mouth,” Ken says. 

“Seriously,” Shiv says. “Before one of us decides to sue you. All those bullshit real estate deals you did with dad when he was too pumped full of meds to even know what he was signing.”

“Fucking asshole,” Roman grounds out, Gerri’s face expressionless beside him.

To all of their surprise, the will is the same as it was eight years ago with the exception of Marcia’s share. A fourth of everything in the trust is now Roman’s, as is the house in Scotland, and Connor balks at that, clearly pissed off.

The reading of the will is concluded with a short statement written by their father, one of the family lawyers reading Logan’s words in a passionless tone as the guy’s glasses slip further and further down his nose.

“- but everything I’ve done, all my work, has been for my children.”

Roman’s first sob takes him by surprise, the noise ripped from his throat, and then he’s bent over, crying like a child in the pew of an old, drafty church, Kendall holding him and Gerri clutching his hand while he sobs and sobs. Cries long after everyone else files out. Cries so hard that Ken basically has to carry him to the car. 

“I’ve got him,” Roman hears Gerri say. “Ride with your kids, it’s alright.”

He cries all the way back to the house, Gerri shuffling him up the stairs while the wake goes on, Shiv and Kendall turning up later, drinks in their hands as they take turns hugging him.

“Honey, try to eat something,” Gerri says. But he doesn’t want to eat anything, he wants his father to have been a better man and failing that, to still be fucking alive.

He shakes his head, Albert half in his lap as he starts crying again, but eventually he cries himself out and Ken thrusts a plate of food at him.

“Eat something,” Shiv says, Tom beside her on the couch now and Roman isn’t sure when his brother-in-law turned up. Probably sometime after Roman sent someone down to find Connor, tell him to get the fuck out of their house. “Come on, you’re scaring Gerri.”

“He’ll eat when he’s ready,” Gerri says here, but she looks so worried that he feels like an asshole. Takes a couple bites of food.

“So this is your house now,” Tom says, ever the graceful conversationalist. 

“It’ll always be open to all of you,” Roman shrugs. “Just tell me if guys decide to sell the London apartment. There’s some shit from there I want.”

“Deal,” Shiv says. “Ken, you gonna sell the place in Hungary?”

“And lose all those great memories?” Ken says, all of them snickering at that. “Shooting at boars while dad yelled at us. Getting bitten by that one snake Frank swore wasn’t poisonous but _clearly_ had no real idea about.”

“There were other heirs,” Roman tells him. “Frank knew there were spares around if you died.”

“Fuck you,” Ken says. “That snake bite hurt.”

“Hey,” Roman gestures, "I offered to piss on it.”

“Um,” Tom says. “I think - I think you only do that for jellyfish stings?”

Gerri guffaws at that, a hand pressed to her cheek now, and Roman watches her, the little lines around her mouth deepening as she laughs. 

“Oh hey,” Shiv says. “A little birdie told me that you’re retiring.”

“Siobhan,” Roman warns. 

“What?” Shiv asks him.

“It’s okay,” Gerri says, her smile less easy now, more practiced. “It’s true. I am retiring.”

“Oh yeah?” Roman says. 

“Yeah,” she says, grabbing his hand again. “I’d like to fill my time with things other than work.”

“You’re not going to get bored?” he asks her. “Going on walks with me and Albert? Tagging along on my work trips?” 

“Our pervert brother always pestering you for sex,” Shiv adds, and Gerri gives her a blasé look over her drink. 

“He already does that.”

“Yes,” Tom says. “We all heard, thank you.”

“Do we want to place bets?” Ken asks. “How long until Gerri’s new hip gives out?”

“Oh, fuck off,” Gerri says but still laughs, Shiv cracking a shitty joke as Tom whistles. 

“Are you really going to be okay retiring?” Roman asks when they’re finally alone. 

He’s already greedily running through possibilities in his head, all the ways he can step back from his own work, go remote more so they can travel as much as they want. Spend more time in DC, maybe go out to California when Claire’s baby turns up. But he wants her to feel sure, not have any regrets. 

“I’m sure,” Gerri says. “But I’m sorry I just announced it to everyone like that.”

“Took a page from the Roman Roy playbook. Went off all half cocked.” She smiles at that, head resting against the couch they’re curled up on. 

“I’m not going to live forever,” she says, but he stops her immediately, his eyes welling up again. He can’t bear to think about that now. Not now and not ever. “I want more time with you,” she says instead. “No more rushing through days and only seeing your face at the end of them.”

He stares at her here, feels so flayed open already, his ribs splayed wide and his heart beating out in the open air, Gerri looking back at him with soft eyes and a smile she only gives to him. 

No one else, only him.

“I love you,” he says. “You’re the single best thing I ever managed to not fuck up.”

“Ditto,” she says.

She leans in to kiss him, her lips chapped from all the cold, a little dry and rough against his own, but he doesn’t mind. 

He’ll never, ever mind. 

. . . 

* * *

_somebody care_ _  
_ _somebody care_ _  
_ _somebody care for me_

 _and it's all I live for_ _  
_ _the air I breathe_ _  
_ _so it's all the same to me_ _  
_ _yeah, it's all the same to me_

\- Anya Marina, “All the Same to Me”

* * *


End file.
